Saints 56

Leeds Rhinos 10

THE pre-match talking point revolved around whether Saints, mindful of their date in Cardiff in a fortnight, would 'rest' some of their key players for this clash against the league leaders.

But Saints not only put out their best available 13 they turned on the style too, blitzing the previously unbeaten Rhinos with an exhilarating brand of running rugby.

The sheer speed of Saints' play-the-balls left Rhinos' flagging defence bedraggled and bewildered.

Skipper Paul Sculthorpe's and Keiron Cunningham's quick pick ups from the heels of impressive driving props Keith Mason and Nick Fozzard constantly put Leeds on the back foot.

From that platform, Saints let their hands do the work to rattle in nine magnificent tries.

The army of Rhinos fans, who had turned up waving betting slips, will have wished they had brought hankies instead as their mocking mood turned quickly into despondency.

Their side, who had been rattling in points at a rate of almost 40 a match, failed to trouble the scorers until an hour had past and by that time Saints had 44 on the board.

No wonder coach Tony Smith looked shell-shocked in the post-match Press conference.

He said: "I am extremely disappointed. We were very slow out of the blocks and you can't afford to do that against St Helens.

"They sniffed the blood and went in for the kill and got it.

"All credit to them, they can do that to teams. They are extremely good at finding the ground early in the tackle count and once they get a roll going they take advantage of teams.

"They are the best in the competition at getting down on the ground and then going again. And when you have people like Keiron Cunningham and Paul Sculthorpe on the back of that, they can exploit you."

Saints grabbed the game by the scruff off the neck from the off and from the applied pressure big centre Willie Talau flicked the ball out of a two-man tackle to send Ade Gardner over.

Three plays into the restart, Mason smuggled the ball out of a tackle for Cunningham to send Lee Gilmour scorching in from the half way line.

On the quarter mark Martin Gleeson switched play inside for man of the match Jason Hooper to race over unopposed.

Long's super ball sent skipper Sculthorpe scorching over for a try with Hooper then bagging his second to make it 28-0.

A brace of Long penalties in the first five minutes of the second half kept the scoreboard and the clock ticking over.

Albert picked up a tricky Leeds kick on his 20 metres mark and after zipping through the first line of defence on a diagonal burst, the Aussie gave a reminder of how quick he is once he gets the ball in space as he sped 70 metres to score.

Another long-range effort came from Talau, who straightened on to a smart pass from Gleeson from a scrum.

Rob Burrow's darting diagonal run for a try brought ironic cheers from the home crowd on the hour mark.

With Albert in the sin bin for holding down, Saints were still able to bring up the half century with Ian Hardman squeezing in at the corner. Hooper showed there was no end to his talents, waiting for the hullabaloo over the pitch invading streaker to die down before calmly slotting over the touchline conversion.

Chris Feather grabbed another score for the Rhinos, goaled by Kevin Sinfield, but that was a mere detail as Mark Edmondson showed nifty footwork, chipping up a loose ball to race 30 metres to bring the curtain down.

Saints: Wellens; Gardner, Gleeson, Talau, Albert; Hooper, Long; Fozzard, Cunningham, Mason, Gilmour, Joynt, Sculthorpe. Subs: Edmondson, Fa'asavalu, Hardman, Bibey.

Leeds: Mathers; Cummins, Walker, Senior, Bai; McGuire, Duneman; Feather, Burrow, McDermott, Furner, McKenna, Sinfield. Subs: Bailey, Adamson, Poching, McDonald.