'Beast' leads the charge as weary Saints topple Giants

Six of the seven St Helens players who helped England to beat France on a humid night in Toulouse on Friday fronted up for their second game in less than 48 hours.

Saints were not prepared to risk dropping any points with Catalans Dragons breathing down their necks, and coach Daniel Anderson said: ‘We lost a bit of punch in the last 20 minutes when we showed some fatigue but I thought we were very sharp in the first hour.’

Winning streak: Maurie Fa'asavalu (centre) celebrates scoring his second try for St Helens during their Super League match victory over Huddersfield

Anderson singled out rampaging prop Maurie Fa’asavalu for a special mention.

‘He is a beast,’ said Anderson after the Samoan — who played for England on Friday along with Leon Pryce, Paul Wellens, Ade Gardner, James Graham, Jon Wilkin and
James Roby — began his two-try show by scoring with his first touch.

‘James Roby gave him the ball and Huddersfield players were just bouncing off him. He loves it.’

Fa’asavalu and Roby both came off the bench after half-an-hour when Huddersfield were only losing 10-6 but were in the process of committing hara-kiri with their indiscipline.

They conceded 12 consecutive penalties, many of which led to home tries, and the final tally against them was 18-4.

Fa’asavalu clearly frightened the life out of them because they scattered like falling leaves when he breezed in for his second try — his seventh in his last six matches
including the international — just before the interval hooter.

‘The Beast’ went off for a breather early in the second half but came back on looking for his hat-trick just as Saints started to run out of steam and Huddersfield made a
valiant effort to restore their pride.

Saints looked certain to break the 50-point barrier for the sixth time this season when they led 46-6 going into the final quarter.

But winger Gardner, who played the full 80 minutes against France and again yesterday, was denied his second try and a 10th for Saints in the dying seconds.

He ran splendidly for 40 metres, from Paul Sculthorpe’s pass, but was denied by Paul Whatuira’s last-ditch tackle.

Nine tries were more than enough to give Saints their 12th win in a row — including three Challenge Cup ties. In contrast, Huddersfield are without an away league win
this season.

The Giants, who have yet to appoint a new head coach after parting company with Jon Sharp, showed some spirit at the back end and reduced the deficit with tries from Danny Kirmond, his first for the club, and Stuart Jones.

Kieron Purtill, one of the two former St Helens men acting as caretaker coaches for the Giants, said: ‘Our discipline is something we need to address because if you give a team like St Helens so much possession they are going to score tries.

‘We need to be smarter but we came back at the end because the guys will never give up. We expected Saints to include all their test players because the Aussies are used to doubling up so there was no reason why these lads couldn’t.’

David Hodgson, the former Wigan and Salford back, made a belated debut for Huddersfield after recovering from a pre-season knee operation. It must have been a
sobering experience for him.

But Purtill was delighted to see Hodgson back in action to give him a chance of pushing for an England World Cup spot in October.

Saints slipped to seventh in the Super League table when they lost unexpectedly 28-26 at Huddersfield in March. Not even a few tired legs were going to stop them from exacting their revenge yesterday.

Keiron Cunningham, Francis Meli, Willie Talau, twice, Sean Long and Roby were Saints other try-scorers and the only worry for their coach was that Long had to go off, with a thigh injury, just after scoring his try.