St Helens, Warrington and Wigan went into round three of the Super League suffering hangovers from last week’s World Club Series. Of the three, only Saints could muster a win, as they scraped past a forgiving Castleford Tigers side in Friday’s televised game at Langtree Park.

Tigers coach Darryl Powell was disappointed that his side fell to another narrow defeat.

“I thought we should have won. It’s a bit of a habit,” said Powell, whose team were defeated 21-14.

“We had a purple patch but we couldn’t sustain it. It’s frustrating. We’re not quite where we want to be. If we had been able to build pressure, we would have won the game,” he added.

Elsewhere, Warrington went down 38-18 in the south of France against Catalans Dragons, and Wigan lost away at Hull KR, as the hosts scored 16 points in a row to come back to win 22-20, having been 20-6 down at the start of the second half.

David Campese, a Wallabies legend from the union code, was in attendance at Hull, as he watched his nephew and Rovers captain Terry Campese help his side to their first win of the season.

In other round three games, Widnes put 58 points past a Wakefield side who slumped without much of a fight to their first defeat of the season, while across the Pennines, Leeds beat Huddersfield by 28 points to 24 in a hard-fought Thursday night game.

The highlight of the weekend came at the A J Bell Stadium in Salford, as an inspired piece of play from Rangi Chase helped the Red Devils to a 32-28 win over Hull FC. 

The New Zealand-born England international carried the ball in front of a bemused Hull defensive line, dummying outrageously to two runners before releasing the ball around his back to centre Josh Griffin, who crossed for four points.

Griffin could find himself up for try of the season at the end of the year, such was the magnificence of Chase’s assist, and you also get the feeling that the half-back has more of this in his locker.