Saints smash Quins to go top

St Helens moved to the top of the engage Super League with a resounding 54-0 shut-out success over Harlequins RL - their 13th win on the spin.

Led by the outstanding Leon Pryce, Saints produced a clinical display in the capital to leapfrog previous leaders Leeds on points difference.

Quins - fielding just four overseas players - battled manfully to stay in touch but conceded 10 tries, six of which were converted by Sean Long.

It was Jon Wilkin's effort after 56 minutes that pushed Daniel Anderson's troops to the summit, although by then the game was long over as a contest.

Perfect Pryce

Having seen Leeds slip up against their arch-rivals Wigan the previous night, Saints were in no mood to suffer an upset at a venue that had seen the Rhinos go away losers three weeks earlier.

Quins must be sick of the sight of Pryce, who followed up his hat-trick in a resounding win at Knowsley Road earlier this season with a superb display.

The stand-off, back in action for his club after a man-of-the-match performance for England against France, set up the first two tries of the match with wonderful runs before grabbing the third himself.

Willie Talau was the first to benefit from Pryce's skills, a smart break catching Quins short of numbers in defence and leading to the centre going over on the left.

Pryce's second assist was even more impressive, an outrageous dummy in midfield opening up a massive gap that he accelerated through before offloading for Roby to finish.

After Pryce had scored himself Gareth Clough barged his way through some shoddy tackling to notch a fourth try before the break that Long converted to make it 22-0.

Procession

If the first half was comfortable for Saints then the second was a procession with a further six scores, the first of which showed the massive gulf between the two teams.

Less than six tackles after denying Tony Clubb on their own line Ade Gardner was scoring at the other end, the winger racing over on the right to move clear on his own at the top of the try-scoring charts.

Wilkin's run on the angle led to another trip to the line, and with top spot already taken care of Saints turned on the style for the closing 20 minutes.

Kyle Eastmond came off the bench to grab a try before a breathtaking move that saw the ball go through 12 sets of hands from right to left culminated in Francis Meli sliding over in the corner.

Pryce, almost now a forgotten man after his one-man demolition job in the opening 20 minutes, set up James Graham for the final try after Roby's second, as the visitors managed to reach their half-century before the finish.