Never was this rule of thumb more in evidence than on 3 August 2002 when a Saints side destined to win its fourth Super League title in six years stomped all over the Wire to the tune of 13 tries and an eye-popping 72 points. Warrington managed just a single Paul Noone penalty goal in response. This wasn’t a vintage Warrington side, winning just seven of their 21 regular season league games to finish a lowly 10th in the standings. But back then it didn’t matter how good Warrington were or not, they always lost in St.Helens.
They weren’t the only team to come away from Knowsley Road with nothing in 2002. In fact, every other Super League side suffered the same fate during the regular season. That this was only a good enough record for Saints to win the League Leaders Shield on points difference is evidence of both a patchy away record and of the Bradford Bulls consistency throughout that season. Yet Saints points difference was just 14 better than that of the Bulls, so racking up 72 in this memorable performance certainly helped.
Saints started that season with a bum-squeaking 15-14 win at Widnes. When they were thrashed 40-6 at London in just their fourth league game of the year the doubts about whether they could wrestle back the Super League crown from the Bulls must have been starting to creep in. Four days later confidence was boosted by a 19-0 shutout of Wigan in the traditional Easter dust-up, a game memorable for a quite ludicrous no-look pass from Tommy Martyn to Peter Shiels. Saints then beat Leeds back to back, the second of which secured a place in the Challenge Cup final to be held at Murrayfield as Wembley remained closed for reconstruction. The season could at that point have been accurately described as topsy and indeed turvy as Saints then conceded 54 points in defeat to Bradford and then went on to lose the Challenge Cup final to Wigan 21-12. With due apologies to our Wigan brethren we are not going to recount the sorry tale of Kris Radlinksi getting up off his sick bed to produce a Lance Todd Trophy winning performance. The bulk of my readers are Saints fans and they don’t want to relive it. Nor, frankly, do I. Suffice to say that I spent the final 10 minutes of that game hiding from the big screen in a small enclave that led to a door by the cellar in the Springfield in Thatto Heath.
To recover from that shattering blow Saints just had to win the Grand Final. They set about their task with a routine 38-6 home win over Halifax but then were beaten 36-22 at Castleford. That would be their last loss until a 22-8 loss at Wigan at the end of July. That was a run of 10 consecutive wins. The Warriors finished third in 2002, seven points adrift of both Saints and Bradford at the end of the regular season, but they were a constant pain in the proverbial of Ian Millward’s side. A week on from that loss at Wigan Saints got set to welcome the Wolves to Knowsley Road in what was a crucial game if the red vee were to get their season back on track.
They did that and then some, opening the scoring in the eighth minute when Keiron Cunningham’s ugly bounce pass was picked up by Darren Albert to dive over untouched. Paul Wellens scored Saints’ second try which for reasons best known to whoever uploaded it is one of four tries not on this classic piece of Youtube from the day. Chris Joynt scored a double within five minutes of the start of the second half but there is sadly no trace of either here, nor of Anthony Stewart’s second try which arrived in the second half to bring up the 60-point mark for the home side.
Before that Sean Hoppe made it 18-2 while further good work from Cunningham and Sean Long set up the position for Stewart to go over in the left hand corner for the first of his brace. When Long broke again before half-time he found Albert on his inside and the Australian flyer strolled over to give Saints a whopping 28-2 half-time advantage. Their cause had been greatly helped by the first half dismissal of Warrington forward Jerome Guisset for an ill-advised slice of foul and abusive gobbing off at referee Robert Connolly.
Joynt’s double was followed by a signature effort from Paul Newlove. It was over as soon as the Great Britain centre received the ball in space down his favoured left channel. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wire never got anyone anywhere near him and it is doubtful whether they would have stopped him if they had. Newlove was something of a specialist at carrying opposition passengers towards their own goal-line while he was in possession. If he happened to be free of any opponents he could shift as quickly as anyone. Newlove was involved in Saints’ next score, picking up an offload from Stewart to begin another trademark scamper down the field. This time Lee Penny came across to cut off the angle and while it is entirely possible that Newlove would have gone around or through the Wire fullback the Saints man chose instead to pass the ball inside to the supporting Martyn.
Arguably the try of the day was Albert’s third. Paul Sculthorpe had joined Saints from Warrington for a world record fee five years previously, a fact that Wire would live to regret for some time. His pass took out three defenders and landed squarely on the chest of Albert, who streaked down the right hand side before getting rid of Penny with a quite sumptuous step on the inside. Albert had raced 75 metres down the field without anyone laying a hand on him. The former Newcastle Knights man was just too fast and too good at changing direction without losing much of that speed. He racked up 88 tries in 118 appearances across four seasons with Saints before playing out the final year of his career with Cronulla Sharks. His is a name that crops up endlessly whenever there’s a discussion about the greatest ever wingers to play in the red vee, and certainly in the Super League era since 1996.
Stewart’s second pushed the score up to 60-2, before Martyn was put through a hole by substitute Mike Bennett. Martyn was never the paciest but fortunately for him he had Hoppe in support and the New Zealand international crossed easily for his second of the game to make it 66-2 thanks to Sculthorpe’s ninth conversion of the afternoon. His tenth followed his own try as he took Cunningham’s pass to step inside two defenders and stretch over to score. The magical 70-point barrier busted, Saints eased off for the final few minutes and so failed to match their record 80-point haul against Wire which they managed in a now infamous Regal Trophy semi-final in 1996.
Four more wins followed before yet another jolting loss at the hands of Wigan. Saints went down 48-8 at the JJB Stadium before putting 64 points past Hull FC at Knowsley Road a week later. They finished the regular season with a win over London Broncos and although they lost a playoff game to Bradford at home in early October, it was the meeting a fortnight later between the two that counted as Long’s late drop-goal altered the kipper on James Lowes for good.
Wire’s season went from bad to shocking as they followed this hammering with five more defeats from their last seven league outings, the nadir of which was a 50-10 drubbing by Wakefield. Things were about to turn around sharply for the Wolves with the investment of Simon Moran which helped turn them into the force they are today. But it would still be antother 10 years before they managed a win on Saintly soil, discounting the 2011 success they had at Widnes when Saints played all their games at the Halton Stadium while Langtree Park was under construction.
That’s just the way it was back then.
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