Super League: St Helens 46-12 Huddersfield

Tommy Makinson scored the first try and kicked seven goals for St Helens.

St Helens moved back into third in the Super League table with a high-scoring victory over struggling Huddersfield.

Tries from Tommy Makinson, Jonny Lomax, Francis Meli, Lance Hohaia and Louis McCarthy-Scarsbrook meant the game was effectively safe by half-time.

Keith Mason and Scott Grix replied for the Giants before the break.

Anthony Laffranchi, James Roby and Paul Wellens emphasised Saints' superiority during a second half in which the Giants rarely threatened.

Huddersfield have yet to win a Super League match away to St Helens. And they duly fell behind before the five-minute mark when Chris Flannery and Hohaia combined to gain 60 yards before the ball was spread wide for Makinson to dive in at the right corner.

The Giants were then fortunate when a Michael Shenton effort was ruled out for a forward pass, but Lomax seized on another Flannery pass soon afterwards to score his 12th try of the season.

Meli shrugged off an ineffectual Scott Grix tackle to make it three, but Huddersfield immediately struck back when Danny Brough kicked through for Mason to crash over from close range.

Hohaia then made it three tries in almost as many minutes, dropping his shoulder and scooting through a hole in the Huddersfield defence.

McCarthy-Scarsbrook was the next to contribute to the opening period try-fest, powering beyond three attempted tacklers before, at the other end, Grix took advantage of a fortunate bounce from Brough's high kick to reduce the growing deficit.

The game tightened up after the break, but Saints continued to keep the visitors penned in their own half and Roby's short pass put Laffranchi in position to burst over.

Roby then ran in from close to the half-way line, his 70th try for St Helens, before the outstanding Wellens scored his sixth try in as many games, Roby again proving the provider.

VIEW FROM THE DRESSING ROOM

St Helens interim coach Mike Rush:

"We want to finish off the season as well as we can.

"We want to entertain. That's always been the club's philosophy, and we showed some signs of doing that tonight.

"But, if we want to get to the Grand Final and win the Grand Final, we have to defend well. That has to be our platform, and we did that in the second half in particular."

Huddersfield coach Paul Anderson:

"I'm disappointed. We saw some points during the game when we did some good things, but we never had any field position.

"We are a club in transition. We have to keep working hard.

"We have to keep building on what we want to do and become more consistent in doing it."

SUNDAY'S LINE-UPS

St Helens: Wellens; Makinson, Shenton, J Jones, Meli; Hohaia, Lomax; Perry, Roby, Laffranchi, Flannery, Soliola, Wilkin.

Replacements: McCarthy-Scarsbrook, Flanagan, Clough, Dixon.

Huddersfield: Eden; Cudjoe, Lawrence, Gilmour, George; Grix, Brough; Crabtree, Robinson, Mason, Ferres, Chan, Fa'alogo.

Replacements: Faiumu, Patrick, Lee, Moore.

Attendance: 12,329.

Referee: James Child (Dewsbury).