Castleford Tigers 23–22 St Helens — Semi-Final, 2017 Super League Finals Series
28 Sep 2017 · Mend-A-Hose Jungle, Castleford · Attendance: 11,235
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Semi-Final, 2017 Super League finals series: Castleford Tigers 23–22 St Helens, at Mend-A-Hose Jungle, Castleford on 28 Sep 2017.
Sourcing caveat: One source rendered St Helens' 37th-minute try-scorer as "Matty Knowles" rather than Morgan Knowles — treated here as Morgan Knowles (the confirmed St Helens player), since this is almost certainly a transcription error, but flagged rather than silently corrected without note. Rugby League Project's own page for this match repeatedly rendered Ben Barba and Jonny Lomax with the same jersey number across multiple re-fetches — resolved using St Helens' official Nov 2016 preseason squad-number list (Lomax = 1) plus Barba's confirmed 2018 squad number (23, explicitly chosen for him as a marquee signing per the club's Nov 2017 announcement); Barba is recorded here as 23, but this specific number is not directly sourced for this exact fixture (he joined St Helens mid-2017, after squad numbers had already been set) — inferred rather than confirmed, and flagged accordingly. St Helens' front-row starters and interchange bench for this specific match could not be confirmed from a single dated team-sheet; the four bench players and two starting props are reconstructed from the club's 2017 squad-number list cross-referenced against players' known regular first-team involvement that season, not from a directly sourced team-sheet for this date.
Scoring timeline
| 1′ | Castleford Tigers — try, Hardaker |
| 16′ | St Helens — try, Grace |
| 37′ | St Helens — try, Knowles |
| 57′ | Castleford Tigers — try, Gale |
| 64′ | Castleford Tigers — try, Milner |
| 70′ | St Helens — try, Makinson |
| 73′ | St Helens — try, Percival |
| 78′ | St Helens — try, Morgan |
Tries with a sourced minute, in order scored, with the conversion kicked/missed alongside each one where source data lets us match a kicker to that specific try. Tries whose exact minute isn't recorded in available sources appear in the Scorers table below but not here; goal tallies we can't attribute to one specific try are shown as descriptive text in Scorers rather than guessed into this timeline.
Scorers
| Castleford Tigers | Tries: Hardaker 1'; Gale 57'; Milner 64' Goals: Gale (4/5 conversions, plus a match-tying penalty goal 80') Drop goals: Gale — golden-point winner, 86' |
| St Helens | Tries: Grace 16'; Knowles 37'; Makinson 70'; Percival 73'; Morgan 78' Goals: Percival (1/5 conversions) |
Team sheets
| Castleford Tigers | St Helens | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Zak Hardaker | Fullback | Ben Barba | 23 |
| 2 | Greg Minikin | Wing | Tommy Makinson | 2 |
| 3 | Jake Webster | Centre | Ryan Morgan | 3 |
| 4 | Michael Shenton | Centre | Mark Percival | 4 |
| 5 | Greg Eden | Wing | Regan Grace | 28 |
| 6 | Ben Roberts | Five-Eighth | Jonny Lomax | 1 |
| 7 | Luke Gale | Halfback | Matty Smith | 7 |
| 8 | Nathan Massey | Prop | Alex Walmsley | 8 |
| 9 | Paul McShane | Hooker | James Roby | 9 |
| 10 | Jesse Sene-Lefao | Prop | Luke Douglas | 14 |
| 11 | Alex Foster | Second Row | Zeb Taia | 11 |
| 12 | Mike McMeeken | Second Row | Morgan Knowles | 20 |
| 13 | Adam Milner | Lock | Jon Wilkin (c) | 12 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Grant Millington | Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook | 13 | |
| 15 | Junior Moors | Dominique Peyroux | 18 | |
| 16 | Matt Cook | Theo Fages | 6 | |
| 17 | Gadwin Springer | Kyle Amor | 10 | |
| Daryl Powell | Coach | Justin Holbrook | ||
Match officials
| Referee | James Child |
Match report
Castleford Tigers beat St Helens 23-22 in golden-point extra time at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle, in a match Luke Gale played just 16 days after appendix surgery. Castleford led 20-10 before St Helens scored three unanswered tries in the final ten minutes to edge ahead; Gale's match-tying penalty goal in the 80th minute forced extra time, and his drop goal in the 86th minute won it.