Bitter ending for Anderson

St Helens coach Daniel Anderson criticised the officials' handling of the controversial final moments in Saints' 24-22 defeat by Hull KR.

Matt Gidley crossed the line after the final hooter, but the try was ruled out for a Lee Gilmour pass after the tackle had been completed, and Anderson called it a "relatively weak" decision.

He said: "They (the touch judges) are all wired up and he could have told the ref earlier and stopped the whole rigmarole."

Saints trailed 16-6 at half-time and Anderson, who described the Craven Park encounter as a "great advertisement for the game in February," was encouraged by their response.

"Rovers were awesome in the first period," he said. "I don't think they made an error, they had plenty of possession and they punished us. I thought we fought back well.

"In the second half we knew we had to stop them scoring. But we had a horrible start, gave a penalty away and they scored and we had to fight back from 16 points down.

"But I was really happy with the way we played in the second half."

Jake Webster's late penalty won the game for Rovers after Saints fought back to square the match, but head coach Justin Morgan refused to get too excited about the shock win.

"I thought the first half we were very good but after the break we were a bit scratchy and made back-to-back errors," he said.

"Last year at this stage we beat Leeds then went fourth bottom and finished 11th. Let's not get too carried away. It's a nice scalp to get and I said before the competition started I wanted some points out of the first two weeks and we have done that."