Image source, SWPixImage caption, St Helens' most recent win before their victory against Huddersfield also came against the Giants, a 26-18 triumph on 14 May
ByJay FreemanBBC Sport England- Published1 hour ago
Betfred Super League
St Helens (16) 38
Tries: Sironen 2, Macdonald, Walmsley, Robertson, Davies 2 Goals: Hastings 5
Huddersfield (0) 6
Try: Geyer Goal: Flanagan
St Helens ended their losing Super League run as they earned a comfortable win over bottom side Huddersfield Giants.
The hosts touched down twice midway through the first half as Curtis Sironen went over in quick succession and Nene Macdonald added a third try before half-time.
Cole Geyer hit back for the Giants after the break but Alex Walmsley added to the hosts' lead.
Harry Robertson continued Saints' dominance while Jake Davies' pair of tries broke the hosts through the 30-point mark in style.
Victory for Saints means they remain sixth in the table but are now level on 20 points with third-placed Hull KR, fourth-placed Wigan and Wakefield in fifth.
Huddersfield, on the other hand, stay bottom and have now lost eight successive games.
Sironen's opener came at the second time of asking, having had an initial effort chalked off after he prospered from George Flanagan knocking-on to go over, only for it to be judged that the Huddersfield full-back had been tackled in the air in the build-up.
He successfully opened his account for the afternoon when he worked onto Daryl Clark's offload.
And he got his second moments later thanks to some fine work from Tristan Sailor, who chased his own kick and set up Sironen to motor through.
Saints continued their first-half dominance as they worked the ball wide to Macdonald to stroll in with ease as he marked his comeback from injury with his second try of the campaign.
Having been outplayed for most of the first half, Huddersfield produced a better showing on their return for the second and they were rewarded for their spell of pressure when Geyer crashed over to get their first points on the board.
A stifling day's action, with another summer heatwave in the UK just beginning, saw Huddersfield's Lewis Jagger succumb to heat exhaustion.
The conditions had a predictable effect on the game, which was slow and error-prone at times, with one such mistake - from Lee Kershaw's knock-on - leading to Walmsley's try as the St Helens man spun his way over despite the visitors crowding his dash to the line.
Robertson's try then came following Jackson Hastings' kick, which caught out Huddersfield and was patted into his path by Sironen for him to race in, while Davies went in following a penalty and then spun at the corner for his second to put the gloss on a fine showing by the hosts.
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'Clearly it was a tough watch at times' - reaction
St Helens head coach Paul Rowley:
"I'm happy to get two points but clearly it was a tough watch at times. We gave Huddersfield more than ample opportunity to hurt us.
"I always try and find the positives whilst remaining honest in the assessment as well so that will go on behind closed doors but it's important that obviously I don't just pretend that it was a very polished performance.
"Some things would fit into the excuse category, some into the reasons category but overall, our simple skills let us down on more than one occasions, our inability to look out and play the play that's on rather than play within ourselves a bit at times probably left about five or six tries out there."
Huddersfield Giants boss Jim Lenihan:
"The end result is a bit different but I thought we actually took another step forward today on where we're going, I thought. We took on a very good side, a good pack.
"A couple of tries we let in a couple of easy ones early, a short side on Sironen and a bit of brilliance from Sailor got two for them.
"I felt like we competed and scrambled hard, we challenged ourselves, we worked hard to be in the contest against Saints and then I felt the longer the first half went on and even the second half, we created a lot of fatigue in them and put them under some pressure."
[On Lewis Jagger] "I'm not 100 per cent sure with Jags. I think he came off for a HIA but there was some sort of concern that it might have been a little bit of heat as well.
"I think he's been cleared of his HIA but I'll find out more about that afterwards."
St Helens: Welsby; Dagnall, Robertson, Percival, Macdonald; Sailor, Hastings; Walmsley, Clark, Klemmer, Sironen, Wright, Shorrocks.
Interchanges: Delaney, Davies, Humphreys, Suluka-Fifita.
Huddersfield: Flanagan; Kershaw, Jagger, Gagai, Milne; Lolohea, Russell; Rogers, Woolford, Patolo, O'Donnell, Dunford, Powell.
Interchanges: Burgess, English, Cozza, Geyer.
Referee: James Vella.
