Saints 46 Salford City Reds 20

EIGHT-try Saints limbered up well for the 'big one' against Brisbane Broncos in this hastily-arranged friendly at ice-cold Knowsley Road on Friday night.

And, given those elements, they could be satisfied with a gate of 3,650 fans, who were rewarded with some entertaining rugby from both sides.

Predictably, the Super League champions held most of the aces against one of the competition's lesser lights, but a Salford side lacking six regulars won many admirers by their refusal to throw in the towel.

Back from holiday in Amsterdam, Saints' coach Ian Millward named no fewer than 12 substitutes in order to give most of his squad a run-out, and only skipper Chris Joynt (broken thumb) and Anthony Sullivan (leg strain) were missing.

Along with murky visibility, conveyor-belt replacement hardly helped player identification but, overall, Millward felt his team enjoyed a thorough work-out although he was realistic enough to concede that Broncos would be a far different proposition.

The Knowsley Road faithful had their first glimpses of Australian forwards David Fairleigh and Peter Shiels, along with prop Wayne McDonald and hooker Mick Higham and, in Lancashire parlance, the consensus was 'they'll do!'

Scorer of 22 tries last season, mercurial Tommy Martyn began where he left off with an hat-trick here. He also had a hand in two others and landed a towering touchline conversion after regular goalkicker Sean Long was subbed with five successes to his name.

Sean Hoppe, Steve Hall, Kevin Iro, captain Paul Sculthorpe and John Stankevitch also crossed the Salford line, while the highly-promising John Braddish was also on target with a conversion.

Trailing 28-8 at half time with a try by Francis Maloney and a goal by Graham Holroyd, the resilient Reds rallied later with touchdowns from Nick Pinkney, Stuart Littler and Lee Marsh, with Maloney goaling the last try.

As a postcript to what was, on balance, a fair night's work by his men, Ian Millard made an impassioned appeal to Saints' supporters via the public address system to "get behind us at the Reebok Stadium on January 26." It is no less than Saints deserve as silverware kings of Super League.