max value query

[Walker33]

I have a column with multiple values in each row, for instance R01,R02,R03,S01,S02,S03,A01,A02,A03 .  I'm trying to grab the highest S value.  But it's reading it as a single value, beginning with R.

SELECT max (sublicenses) FROM sublicenses where license = '3RF6EWOT2' AND sublicenses like 'R%';

returns entire row

SELECT max (sublicenses) FROM sublicenses where license = '3RF6EWOT2' AND sublicenses like 'S%';

returns empty, as it should, I think, because it's reading it all as a single value, beginning with the first R.  Can anyone point me in the right direction how to query this to return a max value of R03 or S03?  Any help is greatly appreciated.

[fenway]

You'll have to strip out the first character, cast it to a number, and hope that mysql will do the rest.