Wigan humilate scoreless St Helens to reach Challenge Cup final
The Challenge Cup kings have done it again.For the first time in a long time, Wigan Warriors were underdogs going into this semi-final against their fiercest rivals, St Helens, with four successive Super League defeats before stopping the rot last week against promoted Bradford.In contrast, St Helens sit joint-top of Super League and had won their past five games.It all leaned into their being only one winner, but for the 34th time the Warriors have reached the final.Wigan will face either Hull KR or Warrington Wolves, who square off in the second semi-final on Sunday, at Wembley on 30 May and whoever gets through they will face a side hungry for silverware having failed to win anything last season: the first time that has happened during Matt Peet’s first four years in charge.
“I woke up this morning and it’s the most confident I’d felt for a few years,” he said.“The desire to really turn up for one another, get the job done and make some special efforts was brilliant.Just the smell of the place leading up to it … where the lads were and getting some players back, I could just feel it.”Challenge Cup semi-finals should not be this easy.Wigan held their biggest rivals at arm’s length after a display from St Helens that can be best described as insipid.
Paul Rowley may point to the loss of his captain, Matty Lees, after the opening tackle of the game as a major factor and, yes, it would have hardly helped, but Saints were devoid of ideas in attack.Losing to Wigan in any game is unacceptable for St Helens.Doing it in a semi-final is close to unforgivable.Doing it in this manner? That erodes a lot of the credit Rowley and his players have built up in their strong start to the season.“The big moments, we’ll look back at it and look at the tries we conceded and be disappointed,” Rowley said.
“But we’ll also be disappointed by the fact we didn’t put ourselves in the picture by having enough excitement and energy at the right times.”Jack Farrimond’s early try put Wigan in control, but Saints should have responded given the amount of possession they enjoyed after falling 6-0 behind.Instead, the damage was done in a brutal nine minutes before half-time when the Warriors scored three more tries to put the tie almost beyond doubt.Two of them came from the winger Zach Eckersley, who finished wonderful set moves to put them in complete control.When Jake Wardle picked off a lazy pass to intercept and score on the stroke of half-time, Saints were 22 points behind and almost entirely out of it.
Wigan Field; Eckersley, Keighran, Wardle, Hodkinson; Farrimond, Smith; Walters, O’Neill, Thompson, Nsemba, Farrell, Partington.Interchange Kerr, Eseh, Ellis, Mago.Tries Farrimond 2, Eckersley 2, Wardle, Keighran.Goals Keighran, Smith 2.St Helens Sailor; Murphy, Cross, Robertson, Dagnall; Welsby, Hastings; Klemmer, Clark, Lees, Whitley, Wright, Shorrocks.
Interchange Lomax, Walmsley, Delaney, Stephens,Referee Jack Smith,They had to score first after half-time and quickly, but the pattern repeated itself after the break,Spells of pressure ended with Saints serving up tame attacking play that Wigan were able to deal with easily,Wigan did not really need to score again, but they did cross for two more tries in the final minutes through Farrimond and Adam Keighran and you would not back against a record-extending 22nd cup final win if they are in this mood.
US consumer confidence hits record low as Americans fret about rising prices; jobs report beats forecasts – as it happened
Newsflash: the US economy added more jobs than expected in April.Non-farm payrolls rose by 115,000 last month, the Bureau for Labor Statistics reports, beating forecasts of a 62,000 increase.That’s still a slowdown compared with March, though – where the NFP has been revised up to 185,000 jobs, from 178,000 initially.But February’s data is even worse than previously thought – payrolls that month are now estimated to have fallen by 156,000, down from a previous estimate of a 133,000 decline.Those revisions mean employment in February and March combined is 16,000 lower than previously reported
UK borrowing costs fall and pound rises after Starmer says he will stay as PM
UK government borrowing costs fell and the pound rose on Friday as Keir Starmer vowed to remain as prime minister despite the Labour party losing hundreds of council seats across England.Investors calculated that some of the intense pressure on Starmer’s leadership had eased, as Labour appeared on track for smaller losses than election experts had predicted.The yield – effectively the interest rate – had jumped earlier this week, amid fears that the prime minister could face a leadership challenge if the results from the local elections and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales were particularly poor.But after Starmer insisted he would not walk away, the yield on benchmark UK 10-year gilts was down 5 basis points, or 0.05 of a percentage point, at 4
Who is Louis Mosley, the man tasked with defending Palantir against its critics?
The hall was packed with rightwing radicals when Louis Mosley heralded a coming revolution. Just as Oliver Cromwell – that “crusader for Christ and liberty” – routed King Charles I’s royalists, “a similar revolution is brewing today”, said the UK and Europe boss of Palantir. Globalism’s “twilight” was upon us, he said in a speech dotted with admiring mentions of the podcaster Joe Rogan and “Elon’s Doge”.It was not a typical peroration for a big UK government contractor with more than £600m in deals with the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and police. But Palantir, the world’s most controversial tech company, is no typical contractor
AI-powered surveillance company Palantir created a chore coat. Great, now I have no choice but to burn mine | Van Badham
It’s taken me years to find a chore coat with a cut that flatters my big tits but, now that I finally own one, I want to incinerate it.Such is the power of brand contamination; infamous data surveillance megacorp Palantir has decided to bang a logo on a chore coat to sell as corporate merch.Chore coats are the traditional short denim or twill jacket of the 19th-century French working class. Palantir, however, is a company whose public words and commercial-in-confidence activities are inspiring local calls to have its contracts cancelled and its business banned.The gentle French garment is now as cursed as whatever “Marie Amazonette” will ever wear to the Met Gala
Bobby Cox, Hall of Fame manager and Atlanta Braves icon, dies at 84
Bobby Cox, the Baseball Hall of Famer who led the Atlanta Braves to their 1995 World Series title and was a four-time Manager of the Year, has died at the age of 84.The Braves announced Cox’s death in a statement on Saturday. The team did not give a cause of death.“We are overcome with emotion on the passing of Bobby Cox, our treasured skipper,” the team said. “Bobby was the best manager to ever wear a Braves uniform
Leicester hit Northampton for six as league leaders crumble in fiery derby
You can play all the classy rugby you want, you can be leading the table with a few matches to play, but certain elemental truths still apply. One of them is that if you find yourself overpowered up front away from home in a sold-out East Midlands derby, you will be blown away.Northampton could have secured themselves a place in the playoffs here if they had won with a bonus point, but – how to put this – they did not. In a ferocious atmosphere, records tumbled as Leicester claimed that bonus-point win to move third, within one point of Bath, who play Exeter on Sunday, and five shy of Saints. They scored more points than they ever have in this fixture; there were more cards than there have ever been in this fixture
Navel gazing: oranges, mandarins and persimmons top Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for May
How to save asparagus trimmings from the food-waste bin – recipe | Waste not
Thoran and chaat: Romy Gill’s Indian-style asparagus recipes
Australian supermarket sauerkraut taste test: one is ‘like eating the smell of McDonald’s pickle’
Fears for spears: how to cook asparagus without blanching | Kitchen aide
Georgina Hayden’s quick and easy recipe for spanakopita orzo | Quick and easy