Saints 14 Auckland Warriors 42 INJURY-hit Saints were given a baptism of fire in the European launch of the Visa World Club Championship on Friday night.

For the Super League champions and Silk Cut Cup holders were outclassed and outpaced by a rampant Warriors side. Awesome Auckland shook off jet-lag and an adverse 15-2 penalty count to run in seven tries.

Scrum-half Stacey Jones and his partner Gene Ngamu were at the hub of most of the Warriors' raids, while up front a battling Saints' six could never quite contain the likes of Stephen Kearney, Joe Vagana and Great Britain star Denis Betts.

A herculean stint of non-stop effort earned Chris Joynt the McEwan's Lager man-of-the-match award, and the same could be said for Julian O'Neill, who was certainly not short on motivation in facing his former team-mates and fellow countrymen while, as ever, 80 minutes of sheer graft was forthcoming from Apollo Perelini and Keiron Cunningham. However, Saints might feel there is little justice in this world on seeing Auckland's Anthony Swann score two vital tries when he might well have been dealt far more severe punishment than being placed on report following a challenge on Andy Haigh, which saw the young centre taken to hospital with a fractured cheekbone.

Warriors' full-back and captain Matthew Ridge landed the first of his seven goals to open the scoring when Saints were caught offside within three minutes, and tragedy struck for the home side on the restart when Hunte knocked on for Jones and Ngamu to set up the first try for Kearney.

The 21-year-old Jones then scored a glorious solo touchdown before Saints had a let-off courtesy of the video screen when Mark Ellis had a try disallowed after Prescott lost the ball, but Steve redeemed himself with a brilliant cover tackle on Tea Ropati after the ex-Saints' star had been put clear by Betts. But, with 33 minutes on the clock, Saints came back into fleeting contention when Joynt broke in magnificent fashion on half-way and fed Sullivan, whose blow-torch pace saw him scorch over for Bobbie Goulding to convert, and when Bobbie subsequently kicked a penalty after Perelini was fouled Saints savoured the prospect of being just 14-8 down at half time.

However, it proved a false dawn for Saints as dynamic duo Ngamu and Jones struck again to send Swann over, with the replay's screen's response this time being a positive one as was, almost inevitably, the conversion by ace marksman Ridge.

Despite the sin-binning of Ropati for holding down, Auckland forged further ahead on the restart when, after Goulding's pass had gone to ground, Sean Hoppe beat Sullivan and Matautia on the blind side with video confirmation again deemed neccesary, although it was not when Swann scored his second try with the grounding palpably short.

Saints' fans enjoyed their second uplift of the night via a splendid 30-yard individual effort by Hunte to which Paul Anderson added the goal, but Warriors had the final say with further touchdowns from Hoppe again, and arguably the best of the match when Betts and Jones carved out an opening for Ropati.

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