Greg Eden revels in role of Castleford Tigers’ clincher in win over St Helens

The prolific winger sealed a famous 20-10 victory – Castleford’s first league success at Saints since 1990 – with a thrilling 90m intercept effort on Thursday.

It ended a run of 33 losses in that fixture and helped slightly ease the pain of last month’s Challenge Cup final loss against the same opponents.

Eden, 30, admitted: “It was awesome. It was one of the best wins I’ve been involved in.

“We spoke before the game about how long we’d not won at Saints for.

“I think we’ve spoken about it a couple of times every time we come to play here so to chalk that one off in that fashion was perfect.”

Twelve-man Saints had been pushing hard to rescue the contest at 14-10 when Eden plucked off Lachlan Coote’s pass in the 79th minute.

Such intercepts have almost become his trademark since re-joining the club in 2017.

“That’s up there as one of my favourites,” added the former Huddersfield Giants flier.

“I’d been picturing it all week as well – an interception full length to win the game – and it came off.

“I just think to pull that off when they were on our tryline and they could have won it quite easily, there’s no better feeling than going the length and winning it for the boys.”

Eden scored two tries the previous week, too, in the win at Leeds Rhinos – his first game after more than three months out with a hamstring issue.

It looked like he might get caught at Saints and he conceded: “That’s my second game back in 16 weeks so they (legs) were definitely fatigued there. About 30m out I felt like I was running in quicksand!”

Jack Welsby had given St Helens the lead in the first half but tries from Eden and Oliver Holmes, along with a Danny Richardson penalty goal, put the Tigers 14-4 ahead before Alex

Walmsley charged over by the uprights after taking a quick tap penalty to catch the visitors off-guard.

Three minutes earlier Tommy Makinson had been sent off for a late hit but despite mounting pressure from the hosts, Eden was on hand to win it late on.

Eden, who scored 38 Super League tries in 2017 when hometown Castleford finished top and reached the Grand Final, believes they can still push into the top-six play-offs.

He added: “With how we’re playing and to pop Saints off like that, there’s no reason why we can’t go all the way.

“If we can pull off wins like that, get some momentum we’ve got a good run now where we need to push into that six.

“We can’t sing our praises too early; we’ve still got six, seven games left where we need to get a roll on. But if we do that, it’ll stand us in good stead.”