St Helens 48 London Broncos 18: Saints find form again to end run of three defeats

Australian Luke Walsh showed his class as St Helens ended a run of three successive defeats to return to the top of the Super League.

Walsh scored one of his side’s nine tries and kicked six goals in a 48-18 victory that leaves the Broncos still looking for a first win of 2014.

It took the home side five minutes to score their first try, centre Matty Dawson pouncing on Jon Wilkin’s grubber kick on the last tackle.

Then prop Luke Thompson offloaded just short of the line to send over Jonny Lomax, who then took an audacious reverse pass from Walsh to break clear and give winger Tom Makinson his 13th Super League try of the season.

After half an hour Broncos pulled a try back, winger Denny Solomona taking Ben Farrar’s cut-out pass to cross at the corner. But they were blown away inside five minutes of the interval.

Walsh’s dummy let Lance Hohaia over for a try and two minutes later Dawson broke from his own half to get his winger Adam Swift over.

Centre Thomas Minns got on the end of one of Josh Drinkwater’s high kicks for his side’s second try. But a break by James Roby set up Hohaia to put forward Joe Greenwood over, and Josh Jones went over again on the hour.

A superb offload from forward Atelea Vea created a third try for the Londoners through Mike Bishay but Saints’ Mark Flanagan forced his way over two minutes from the end.