The visitors suffered a huge blow after just eight minutes when loose forward Morgan Knowles was forced off with a head injury after a high shot which earned Martin 10 minutes in the sin-bin.<\/p>\n
The home fans breathed a sigh of relief moments later when half-back Lewis returned to the field after limping off, and George Delaney, on for Knowles, could have seen worse than a yellow card after putting his shoulder into Eribe Doro’s head.<\/p>\n
Martin was stopped inches short and James Batchelor knocked on close to the line as Rovers looked to exploit their man advantage, but fine scramble defence denied them in a breathless and scoreless opening half-hour.<\/p>\n
Martin nudged the hosts ahead after Joe Batchelor was punished for an off-the-ball hit on Jez Litten, yet Saints, under the cosh for long periods, went in level through Percival when Litten was pinged for ruck interference.<\/p>\n
Joe Batchelor’s shoulder put the visitors behind for a second time soon after the restart when he illegally blocked Lewis from following up his chip and chase and Martin kicked a simple penalty.<\/p>\n
Tom Davies was denied the opening try after Peta Hiku stuck a foot in touch, but Rovers ground their way to a six-point lead with two quick penalties, the second conceded by Delaney, who was forced to hold on after Lewis cut loose.<\/p>\n
Showing signs of wear and tear, the visitors finally buckled, with Lewis unsurprisingly the man to unpick the lock in the 67th minute, setting up field position with a brilliant 40-20 kick before supplying the try assist.<\/p>\n
Saints set up a nervy finale with a try out of nowhere when Cross chased down Jack Welsby’s kick ahead, but the hosts held on for a fifth successive win over the Saints and a third of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The visitors suffered a huge blow after just eight minutes when loose forward Morgan Knowles was forced off…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-102045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}