Saints 36 Warrington Wolves 14 SAINTS' second venture to the Anfield home of Liverpool FC, while hardly hinting that Rugby League is set to take off in a soccer stronghold, still had its rewards.

Not least of these was the welcome two points which inched Saints into the top five, while the club regarded another five-figure gate as a qualified success for, despite being 2,000 less than last year's crowd against Castleford, it was 3,000 more than the visit of Wolves to Knowsley Road in 1997.

From a Saints' point of view, there was no repetition of the alarming slump following the promising start at Huddersfield the previous week, for here workhorse skipper Chris Joynt and his men applied themselves throughout. Two-try Sean Long was named McEwan's man-of-the-match, with his searing pace and uncanny support work being the perfect complement for half-back partner Bobbie Goulding, whose tracer-bullet passing, tackling stint and five goals all contrived to earn him the Majestic Windows accolade.

The combative Chris Smith, explosive Paul Davidson, enthusiastic Paul Atcheson and often-unsung heroes Andy Haigh and Julian O'Neill were others to catch the eye in a Saints' performance in which handling still leaves something to be desired, but for the purist there was some compensation for this via a magical try by Anthony Sullivan. Torrential rain greeted the teams and it was fully 10 minutes before Goulding opened the scoring with a penalty when the Wolves were caught offside, and Warrington paid the price for allowing the ball to run dead from the restart with the line drop-out seeing Saints capitalise further.

For Goulding and Paul Newlove put Long away and, using Sullivan as a decoy, Sean's electrifying burst sent him over in the Kemlyn Road corner, with Goulding' touchline conversion the icing on Saints' cake.

Briers then hit the post with a penalty as Warrington struggled to get back into contention, but on regaining possession Danny Nutley was 'turned' in the act of touching down, but the Wolves were not to be denied when Fogerty put Steve McCurrie over.

It was almost half-time when Goulding's inch-perfect cross saw Damien Smith outjump Mark Forster to notch his first try for Saints.

Ever mindful of events at the McAlpine Stadium Saints now had their second wind and sealed matters with two tries in six minutes on the restart, the first a 40-yarder by Chris Smith courtesy of Long, who then scampered the same distance with the Wolves' defence in some disarray

Sean was not done yet in overhauling Roach when all seem lost; Davidson was sin-binned for offside, Wolves' Adam Doyle nipped over, and then came the touchdown of the afternoon when Sullivan took the touchline route to outpace Roach and Briers over 60 yards. Warrington had some consolation with a try from Lee Penny with Briers landing his only goal, but Saints had the last say when Paul Anderson touched down and Long added on the conversion.

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