OUTCLASSED Huddersfield Giants felt a big St Helens backlash to crash to their biggest Super League defeat of the season.

Five days after suffering a shock 41-22 defeat at Wakefield, Saints responded in typical Saints style to floor the Giants with a dazzling power-packed display.

But while there was a great deal to admire in the St Helens performance, there was also a great deal of concern with the way the Giants fell apart.

Nothing but praise could be heaped on coach Jon Sharp's men for the way they competed in the opening half.

After a closely-fought 40 minutes they could count themselves desperately unlucky to be trailing 14-8, particularly with referee Ian Smith doing them few favours.

But what a pitiful difference in the second half!

From the moment Paul Wellens crossed for the third of the visitors' eight tries within two minutes of the restart, everything for Huddersfield went rapidly downhill.

Their cause wasn't helped just before the break when in-form Paul Reilly was forced to retire with a bloodied face.

And it got even worse when replacement full-back Stuart Donlan, who had another superb all-round game, also had to leave the field with a bang in the 56th minute.

With two of the Giants' most effective players nursing knocks and Sharp having to field a relatively inexperienced bench, the writing was on the wall.

As a result, the final quarter was once again all about damage limitation, which given the Giants current sixth-place standing in the League ladder is disappointing in the extreme.

How Sharp must be praying to get some of his injured players back onto the field as quickly as possible!

Yet, by the same token, Sharp must have been delighted with the way his depleted side took the game to Saints in the first half.

Within five minutes the Giants had taken the lead.

St Helens centre Lee Gilmour spilled the ball close to his own line, and from the resulting scrum the position was created for the outstanding Eorl Crabtree to take the ball to the line and feed fellow prop Jim Gannon to score from close range.

Paul White added the extras, and the home side had made the perfect start.

It got even better seven minutes later when White banged over a penalty following Nick Fozzard's high shot on Crabtree, and thoughts of another glorious Giants triumph was on the cards.

But due to a combination of smart Saints play, dumb Giants play and some harsh refereeing calls, the visitors slowly managed to claw their way back.

By the 20th minute the scores were level as John Stankevitch finished off a fine move and Paul Sculthorpe landed the first two of his two goals in a perfect nine out of nine kicking display.

And six minutes before the break St Helens took a lead they were never to lose as Darren Albert crossed in the corner moments after White had failed to find touch from a penalty.

But far worse was still to come.

The sight of the injured Reilly being forced off the field in the 38th minute was clearly a bad omen.

However, he does have the consolation of not being on the field as the Giants fell apart in such embarrassing fashion after the break.

Apart from one Crabtree break in the 65th minute there was absolutely nothing for the Giants faithful to cheer as St Helens ran in tries at regular intervals.

After Wellens crossed for his 42nd minute effort, Gilmour made amends for his earlier error by crashing over six minutes later to complete what was a wonderful Saints move.

Donlan's departure in the 56th minute with a bang to his side after a superb take of a high ball added to the home side's woes, and St Helens made sure they rubbed as much salt as possible into the Giants gaping wounds by adding four further tries in the final quarter.

First to strike on the hour was Sculthorpe after a dazzling James Roby midfield break and eight minutes later Jon Wilkin followed up his own kick-through on the sixth tackle to score under the posts.

With six minutes remaining, Sculthorpe's superb skills created an opening for Ade Gardner to finish off.

And then on the stroke of full-time the powerful Dom Feaunati bulldozed his way over from close range.

The Giants misery was complete.

The one hope is that it can't get any worse at home to Widnes on Sunday, can it?