Rugby League: St Helens 57, Wigan 16

May 5 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

DANIEL ANDERSON admitted he knew his side were coming into form after witnessing them register the highest score of the Millennium Magic weekend in Cardiff with a 57-16 hammering of local rivals Wigan.

They ran in 10 tries to end up scoring three points more than Wakefield did against Castleford on Saturday.

Sean Long ran the show for the five-time Super League winners, posting 27 points including a hat-trick and a cheeky first-half drop goal to underline his side’s dominance over their rivals.

The aggregate score between the two sides for the season now stands at 103-26.

“I thought that we were starting to get into the mood to really put a performance on someone,” Anderson said. “We completed 21 from 21 sets in the first half and that’s unheard of. Things went our way, we got the bounce of the ball a little bit and we scored some nice tries.

“It’s obvious to everyone that was the best team I’ve been able to put on the field. Maurie Fa’asavlu didn’t play and Nick Fozzard is out, but they were the only blokes we didn’t have out there. Having talent on the field makes our position as a team much stronger.”

Anderson, who will leave St Helens at the end of the season, also lavished praise on former Great Britain half-back Long for his performance. “Sean had a great game, he’s been training well and playing pretty well of late,” he said. “When you have a result like that you can’t single out one player. I thought every player got into the act and they fed off each other.”

Anderson also joined the list of coaches that have praised the two-day event in South Wales, saying: “I like the idea that we get time to bond as a unit. It’s really nice, a world-class stadium and it doesn’t hurt to win the game.”

Brian Noble called his Wigan side’s performance “embarrassing” after the defeat.

They trailed 35-0 at the interval and Noble has pledged to turn the situation around.

“It was embarrassing in a lot of respects in that first 20-25 minutes,” he said. “We talked about a good start all week, and the only thing we did well was kick off really. We’ve certainly got plenty of improvement in us that’s for sure. It wasn’t the best first half at the office.

“You’ve got to try and take something from the game, I thought a lot of attitudes changed. Lets not hide from the fact that it was slightly embarrassing at half-time and people had paid good money to watch this.”

Noble also refused to allow his players to take sole criticism for a second derby defeat of the season, believing he is as much a part of the current run of three straight league defeats as the players.

We’ve got a lot of things we need to fix up real quick because we need to be a whole lot better than that,” he said. “I’m in there with the players in this and it’s important that we fix things up. Putting Humpty Dumpty together again is going to involve a lot of hard work.”.