bulls

Betfred Super League

Bradford (10) 10

Tries: Steinwede Goals: Atkin, Hooley 2

St Helens (12) 40

Tries: Douglas, Sironen, Welsby 2, Shorrocks, Hastings Goals: Hastings 8

St Helens strongly came through an attritional contest with Bradford Bulls to move back up to fourth in Super League.

They were quickly 10-2 behind after a Phoenix Steinwede try, but from there the visitors fought back to take control.

Jacob Douglas and Curtis Sironen tries had them in front by half-time, but they dominated after the restart with 28 unanswered points and further scores from Jack Welsby (2), Joe Shorrocks and Jackson Hastings, who had a 20-point haul with eight kicks too.

The victory took Saints up two places in the table, level again with Wigan Warriors but with an inferior points difference.

Having faded after a good start, this was a third straight defeat for Bradford, who stay 11th in their first year back at this level.

This was Saints’ first visit to Odsal since 2014 and the home side responded to the sight of one of the great names of rugby league being back at this famous old ground.

It made for a very physical start following a hard-fought game at the Brewdog Stadium in March.

Hastings kicked an early goal for Saints, before Shane Wright was yellow-carded for a late hit on Chris Atkin.

With the Australian forward off for 10 minutes, Bradford scored 10 unanswered points, highlighted by Steinwede’s hard run into the line and a smart sidestep taking him over the line.

But that was the high point for the Bulls as the visitors turned the scoreline around with two tries in the space of seven minutes.

Winger Douglas finished well in the left corner to mark his debut with a try, coming in with injuries leaving a big hole in the backline.

Then second-rower Sironen, on his 100th St Helens appearance, proved unstoppable from close range as Paul Rowley’s side went in ahead at the break.

That advantage was extended within a few minutes of the restart as Welsby got his hand down to Hastings’ grubber kick before the ball went dead.

Shorrocks took advantage when his own little kick bounced up kindly to dive over. Hastings then grabbed a try of his own after Harry Robertson had parried down the Australian’s chipped kick to move the lead out to 20 points and effectively seal the success.

Welsby got his second and St Helens’ sixth try, but the match ended on a worrying note after a very serious-looking injury for Bradford forward Will Gardiner, who needed treatment on the field from both sets of medical teams before he was carried off on a stretcher.

Round eight of Formula 1 season takes place in Austria this weekend in the stunning surroundings of the Styrian hills.

Last time out in Barcelona, Mercedes were beaten in a grand prix for the first time this year with Lewis Hamilton taking victory.

The Briton’s first grand prix win for Ferrari, combined with Kimi Antonelli’s retirement late in the race, narrowed the gap at the top of the drivers’ championship to 41 points.

Before Sunday’s race in Spielberg, BBC F1 correspondent Andrew Benson answers your latest questions.

A retrospective podium for Pierre Gasly. Justice? Or a can of worms best left unopened? – Clive

Formula 1 has clearly got itself in a bit of a pickle regarding the pit-lane speeding penalties in the Monaco Grand Prix.

The facts are that five cars were given penalties for pit-lane speeding when none of them had gone over the limit.

The length of the pit lane had been mis-measured – it was possible to drive a shorter distance than officials initially realised, by 77 metres.

And as the pit-lane speed limit is policed by the time taken to pass through a series of timing loops over a specific distance, that meant the drivers were wrongly penalised.

This led to a sequence of events that had a dramatic effect on the race result.

George Russell was most badly affected by what followed, having a third place turned into a 12th and losing 15 points in the process.

But McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar also had their results changed.

Is it justice that Gasly is returned to a third place at the flag that he lost because Alpine refused to serve his penalty during the race, while the other drivers’ results are unaddressed?

Should the stewards who dealt with Alpine’s right of review over the Barcelona weekend have left it at that, and not raised the very obvious questions that followed on from it?

In terms of natural justice, the answer to both those questions is clearly no – there remain a number of issues raised by this situation that have not properly been dealt with.

McLaren and Red Bull have taken the case to the FIA court of appeal. No date has yet been set for that to be heard.

Mercedes have withdrawn their attempt to get the race result reviewed after concluding there was no viable mechanism for restoring Russell to where he could have finished, and it would not serve anybody to drag it all on.

As McLaren said in their statement about giving notice of intention to appeal: “We believe this case raises important questions concerning sporting fairness, regulatory consistency and the integrity of competition.”

The shame is that this could all have been avoided had the FIA and F1 acted differently before the race.

Teams warned the FIA that there was a problem waiting to happen with the pit-lane speeding limit during the Monaco weekend.

Officials did look into it, but their initial conclusion was that the concerns were unfounded. That was clearly an error. Had that been properly addressed at the time, none of this would have happened.

In terms of sporting fairness, it’s hard not to conclude that the issue should be taken to a full and proper conclusion.

Will Ferrari make Carlo Santi Lewis Hamilton’s permanent full-time race engineer, or is his role still considered temporary? – Anthony

The relationship between Lewis Hamilton and his new race engineer Carlo Santi has started off well.

Santi was initially meant to be a stop-gap before Hamilton received a new full-time engineer, but a Ferrari spokesperson says: “Carlo and Lewis are working pretty well together and there’s no plan to replace him.”

Hamilton has found a much more satisfactory relationship with Santi than he had with Riccardo Adami last year, and he’s tried to explain that without sounding too negative about his situation in 2025.

Hamilton said in Canada, where he finished second for what was his best result with Ferrari at the time, that Santi was “absolutely awesome and I’m really loving working with him”.

In Monaco he went further and compared the relationship with Santi to the one he forged over 12 years at Mercedes with Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington.

“Driver-engineer working together is very, very important,” Hamilton said. “Last year, Adami and I had a really good relationship. He’s a lovely guy. We worked relatively well together.

“Catering to a driver’s needs takes time to learn.

“When you’re giving an engineer feedback, their understanding of through-corner balance, their understanding of all the elements that contribute to the struggles that you’re struggling with, you try to describe what it is, the problem you have, corner by corner, entry, mid and exit where you dissect it into five sections if you want.

“Having that driver-engineer collab, it’s hit and miss sometimes. With me and Bono, we hit it off from the beginning. He had a good working relationship with Michael (Schumacher). I do feel like Carlo is like my Italian Bono.

“He’s a bit of an OG. He’s an older guy that’s been around the block and he’s very calm. You can hear him on the radio. That’s the detail that we’re able to go into together. Our understanding of the engineer side, it’s something that’s very cool.”

As so many of Newcastle’s games have been this season, it looked like one-way traffic from their opponents from kick-off.

Making his first start at outside centre with Luke James unwell, Roebuck crossed with a minute on the clock, cutting inside from the left after a hand-off from Reed, with George Ford notching the extras.

Newcastle’s Simon Benitez-Cruz saw a try chalked-off for a forward pass before Seb Kelly barged over for his first Prem try at the other end on six minutes after a slick break down the left from Reed was stopped just short of the line.

The hosts got on the board on 10 minutes following a series of close-range drives with Christie diving under a pile of bodies to touch down on the whitewash.

O’Flaherty scored the third Sale try 15 minutes in after a basketball-style tip back from the touchline from Roebuck, with Ford notching the extras from out wide.

Joe Carpenter secured the bonus-point try inside 24 minutes after taking a short pass from Ford on the charge, with the England fly-half adding the extras.

The recalled Amanaki Mafi bulldozed down the blind side from a close-range scrum to reduce the arrears for Red Bulls as the heavens opened, though the conversion was missed once again and Sale added their fifth try through Alfie Longstaff after a rolling maul from a line-out, with Ford kicking his fifth conversion from the right.

Sale struggled to get going after the turnaround and the hosts made them pay as Hearle burst onto Harrison Obatoyinbo’s pass to plunge over by the posts, with Brett Connon slotting his first conversion to make it 35-17.

Lockwood picked up after Christian Wade was stopped a metre short of the line after gathering a long diagonal kick and dived into the corner and Ben Healy converted from the touchline to make it an 11-point game with 25 minutes remaining.

Roebuck thought he had picked up his second score after driving forward and then winning the race to Newcastle-bound Raffi Quirke’s grubber kick towards the line but it was ruled-out for a knock-on from O’Flaherty and the hosts then produced a defiant goalline stand to keep the Sharks at bay, with Roebuck held up on the line and then knocking on under the posts.

The waves of pressure continued and Reed eventually crossed after quick hands from Quirke, Ford and O’Flaherty, with Ford adding the conversion.

However Newcastle raced back and with 13 minutes remaining a brilliant flick from Healy sent Christie diving over for his second score in the right corner.

Healy turned provider once again on 72 minutes with a delayed pass to send Hearle over for his second to the right of the uprights and then notched the conversion to make it a four-point deficit.

After one win in 547 days the hosts were not going to settle for a close call and broke away from their own 22 after the clock ticked over to 80 minutes with Hearle on hand to collect a short pass and blaze away from halfway untouched to spark wild scenes in the final game of the season at Kingston Park.

Bulls: Le Roux; Arendse, Moodie, Vorster, Jacobs; Pollard, Papier; Steenekamp, Grobbelaar, Klopper; Vermaak, Nortje; Coetzee (capt) Louw, Hanekom.

Replacements: van Staden, Wessels, Smith, Wiese, Rudolph, de Wet, Gans, Petersen.

Munster: Haley; Smith, Nankivell, O’Brien, Daly; Hanrahan, Casey (capt); Loughman, N Scannell, Ala’alatoa; Ahern, O’Connell; O’Donoghue, Hodnett, Gleeson.

Replacements: D Barron, J Wycherley, Bartley, F Wycherley, Coombes, O’Donovan, Kelly, Kendellen.

Billy Donovan has resigned as head coach of the Chicago Bulls, ending his six-season tenure, after missing out on the play-offs.

The Bulls wanted to retain Donovan’s services despite parting company with vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and general manager Marc Eversley on 6 April.

Donovan, 66, held an option in his contract for next season but has decided to step down to allow a new coach to rebuild.

“After a series of thoughtful and extensive discussions with ownership regarding the future of the organisation, I have decided to step away as the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, to allow the search process to unfold,” Donovan said.

“I believe it is in the best interest of the Bulls, to allow the new leader to build out the staff as they see fit.”