Saints smash tame Rhinos
St Helens kept in touch with the Super League leaders with a dominant 42-16 victory over Leeds at the Stobart Stadium.
Last Updated: 03/06/11 9:58pm
St Helens kept in touch with the Super League leaders with a dominant 42-16 victory over Leeds at the Stobart Stadium.
Saints stay two points behind Warrington but are now five clear of the Rhinos, who were on the wrong end of a crushing defeat for the second week in a row.
Just days after their 42-6 Headingley humiliation by the Wolves, Leeds were once again a clear second best against one of their title rivals.
Leeds made a decent start to the contest although with hindsight their hesitancy was perhaps demonstrated by the decision to take two early Kevin Sinfield penalties rather than press for a try.
It took Saints 20 minutes to get into their stride after Michael Shenton and James Roby both went close to opening the hosts' account.
But Roby made amends by creating the opening try for James Graham, his short pass giving the prop the chance to demonstrate his trademark spin move out of the tackle, before crashing over.
At 6-4 at the break the game looked poised for a tense second half. It turned out to be anything but.
Just a minute in Brent Webb dropped the ball on his own goal line and from the subsequent drop-out, Jonny Lomax offloaded brilliantly for Roby to score.
Error
The next try came from another error, this time Kevin Sinfield floating a kick straight into the arms of Francis Meli, who raced 60 metres to score.
Meli then turned provider, making the break on the left wing and finding Lomax on his inside to run in unopposed.
Sinfield's miscued short kick-off went dead and moments later Soliola's offload put Scott Moore over.
At 30-4 the contest was finished but Saints weren't - Jon Wilkin's outrageous backhanded pass setting up Paul Wellens for the sixth try.
Leeds did hit back with a couple of consolation tries through Jamie Jones-Buchanan and Lee Smith, but Sinfield's miserable night was complete as his looping long pass was plucked out of the air by Lee Gaskell for the simplest of scores and Jamie Foster knocked over his seventh conversion from seven kicks on the hooter.
