St Helens ensured they kept in touching distance of with Leeds with a convincing win over Huddersfield.

Graham, Roby, Wilkin, Wellens, Fa’asavalu and Gardner all featured for Saints despite having played in England’s 56-8 win over France, less than 48 hours ago.

The Giants were made to pay for their indiscipline as they were on the wrong end of an 18-4 penalty count, persistently piling more pressure on themselves.

Despite the final score line, neither side could find an opening in the first 20 minutes but Saints struck first as Cunningham reached out to ground the ball after running from dummy-half.

Meli then extended the home-side’s lead following as he was able to stroll in at the corner as a result of a superb long pass from promising youngster Kyle Eastmond who started the match in place of Leon Pryce.

Huddersfield looked to have found their way back into the match when Hemmingway capitalised on some sloppy St Helen’s passing to score but the Giant’s celebrations were short lived as Fa’asavalu scored with his first touch of the ball and Gardner also added another, as he capitalised on the extra space afforded by the sin-binning of Rod Jensen for a late challenge.

With the last play of the half, Fa’asavalu grabbed a second as he scored from a surging run.

After the break Saints made the game safe in the first 15 minutes, scoring 4 tries as they dominated possession as Huddersfield gave away multiple penalties.

Talau scored the first before Roby finished off a flowing move started in Saint’s own half.

Long then dummied his way over from short range before Talau pounced on a perfectly weighted grubber kick.

To Huddersfield’s credit, they showed some pride in their performance as they shut out Saints for the remainder of the match and scoring two tries in the process, with Kirkmond and Jones grabbing consolation tries.