\n With four new signings in their starting line-up, they honoured 27-year-old skipper Lees with a solid first outing of 2026 in Paul Rowley\u2019s first game as head coach.\n<\/p>\n
\n A guard of honour at the start and a standing ovation at the end of his second spell on the field made it an extra special occasion for the England international prop going into his 10th year in the first team.\n<\/p>\n
\n His side led 16-6 at the break, with Papua New Guinean centre Nene Macdonald touching down an opportunist first try in Saints colours to score the team\u2019s opening points of 2026 in the 12th minute.\n<\/p>\n
\n Soon after, Jack Welsby\u2019s short pass allowed Saints\u2019 other centre Harry Robertson to surge over on the angle.\n<\/p>\n
\n Welsby was the creator of Saints\u2019 third try as well, going inside and out to commit the defence and slip out a left-handed reverse pass for winger Deon Cross to go over in the corner unopposed.\n<\/p>\n
\n Scrum-half Jackson Hastings landed two of the three conversions on his Saints debut to give his team a 16-0 lead.\n<\/p>\n
\n Right on the half-time hooter, winger Mikaela Ravalawa crossed for Castleford from a kick and scrum-half Tom Weaver converted.\n<\/p>\n
\n Stand-off Tristan Sailor broke through the line wide out and found Shane Wright on his inside to open the second-half scoring, with Hastings converting.\n<\/p>\n
\n Wright bagged Saints\u2019 fifth try as well, thanks to being in support of Robertson\u2019s weaving run.\n<\/p>\n
\n Ravalawa went over for his second Cas try and the scoring was wrapped up by Lewis Murphy and Sailor tries for Saints in the closing five minutes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Saints: Jack Welsby; Kyle Feldt, Harry Robertson, Nene Macdonald, Deon Cross; Tristan Sailor, Jackson Hastings; David Klemmer, Daryl Clark, Matty Lees, Shane Wright, Matt Whitley, Joe Shorrocks. Subs; George Delaney, George Whitby, Jake Wingfield, Agnatius Paasi, Lewis Murphy, Jake Burns, Owen Dagnall, Jacob Douglas, Jake Davies, Alfie Sinclair, Luca Walsh, Cole Marsh, Tom Humphreys, Billy Keeley.\n<\/p>\n
\n Tigers: Blake Taafe; Jason Qareqare, Louis Senior, Darnell McIntosh, Mikaele Ravalawa; Daejarn Asi, Tom Weaver; Renouf Atoni, Liam Hood, George Lawler, Jordan Lane, Alex Mellor, Joe Stimson. Subs: Brock Grreacen, Joe Westerman, Chris Atkin, Fletcher Rooney, Brad Singleton, Aiden Doolan, Jenson Windley, Sam Hall, Alfie Lindsay, Jimmy Beckett, Daniel Sabrah.\n<\/p>\n
\n Referee: Jack Smith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With four new signings in their starting line-up, they honoured 27-year-old skipper Lees with a solid first outing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-388537","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\/388537","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=388537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}