Perfect Saints stun the Bulls (From Warrington Guardian)

Perfect Saints stun the Bulls

Bradford 10 Saints 30 By Mike Critchley

CRIES of 'Can we play you every week?' echoed from the massed bank of travelling support after sizzling Saints had maintained their knock-out hoodoo over Challenge Cup holders Bradford with a faultless performance.

After steamrollering Penrith Panthers and Wigan in their opening games, the rampaging Bulls were highly fancied to trample over all before them this season.

But once again the newly crowned World Club Champions were stopped dead in their tracks by a Saints side, who executed their game plan to perfection, tackled like Trojans, completed their sets wisely and punished the hosts with a kicking game conducted with slide rule accuracy.

There was not a weak link on the park with new prop Nick Fozzard leading from the front with some fearless hard-yard eating charges against the biggest men in Super League. Saints had some great 'go forward', with the speed of their play the balls aiding their penetration into home territory.

Saints' pack faced down the Bulls heavyweights magnificently with hooker Keiron Cunningham, stronger and fitter than he has looked for years, bossing the ruck area. Cunningham adopted more of a roving prop role when understudy Mick Higham was thrown on to pep up Saints' attack still further.

Maturing prop Mark Edmondson also earned his spurs - not simply for the way he sped away for Saints' crucial opening try after collecting Fozzard's smart off-load.

But that first try was critical, for it seemed to register into the Bulls' heads that they were up against a team they have failed to knock out of any competition since 1980.

And with displays like this it makes you wonder how much of Saints' superiority is down to psychology.

But the winning habit is down to more than that - Saints, seemingly unlike any other team in Super League, have Bulls sussed and know where all their weak points are.

Paul Sculthorpe and Sean Long employed a variety kicks to expose those points, constantly turning the Bulls big men around.

Sculthorpe's frequent touch finders might not have been spectacular, but they ate up the yards, sent the Bulls back-pedalling, stopped play and allowed Saints to focus on what they needed to do to keep the threat contained.

Long's well-placed grubbers, backed by an aggressive chase, forced the Bulls to drop out behind their own line on a number of occasions to keep them on the hook.

Their kicking game was also the perfect way of ensuring that the threat posed by Lesley 'Volcano' Vainikolo remained a dormant one.

Having failed to steam-roller the Saints into submission, Bulls had no plan B.

And if coach Brian Noble believed throwing in scrum half Paul Deacon for his first action since suffering a facial injury five weeks ago would give Bulls an edge, he was badly mistaken.

If Deacon was badly off the pace - the same could not be said of his opposite number Long who was on fire, snapping up an interception try midway through the half to give Saints a 14-2 lead. Although Deacon crossed from close range to narrow the deficit to 14-6, Saints had the upper hand at the interval.

Although Saints never really allowed the holders to build any substantial period of pressure, Bulls could have got foothold nine minutes after the restart when former Wigan centre Paul Johnson surged down the left flank.

But full back Paul Wellens, who was faultless as Saints' last line of defence, weighed him up magnificently before hauling him down five yards from the line.

Wellens had a tremendous game, particularly the way he swept up Deacon's grubbers and cleared his line.

The game clinching try provided another twist of the knife into the wounded Bulls - with Odsal old boy Lee Gilmour charging through to touch down.

It came from a set move straight off the training ground with strong running Willie Talau acting as a pivot, collecting Sculthorpe's pass before pinging the inside ball into the arms of the rapidly advancing Great Britain second rower, who galloped into a gap as wide as the Mersey Tunnel.

Martin Gleeson brushed off some weak Bulls defence to put the game beyond doubt on 62 minutes.

And although Lee Radford's try sought to restore some ill-deserved respectability to the scoreline five minutes from time, Saints had the last word when super skipper Sculthorpe twisted and turned his way over from dummy half to put the icing on the cake.

Overall it was a magnificent all-round team effort with newcomer Dom Feaunati also showing he was not out of his depth in only his second senior game of rugby league.

No wonder then coach Ian Millward was delighted.

He said: "We are really keen to get to the Millennium Stadium.

"We're better prepared this year and having said the winners of this tie will get to Cardiff, anything less than the final will be a disappointment now.

"We had a tremendous pre-season and played well against Hull last week so I expected to win today.

"But it was tough. Bradford played well and they threw a lot at us."