SUNDAY night’s World Club Challenge against South Sydney Rabbitohs at an 18,000 sold-out Langtree Park promises to be a humdinger of an occasion with big stories on and off the pitch.

And although there are plenty who want to put one over the Australians for the dismissive way they treat the English game, Saints boss Keiron Cunningham’s concerns are more specific for his town and team.

The hometown hero expects the 17 players he sends out into battle to fly the flag for St Helens and having witnessed the group becoming tighter-knit with each game is confident that they will be up to the job.

Cunningham said: “I don’t care about what Australians think about the English game - we are flying the flag for St Helens in this match.

“There are a lot of local lads in this team and this club means a lot of things to a lot of people.

“Whether it’s for England or not is not a concern for me, this is about our town, our club and if the Australians like us or rate us does not bother me. We want to do well for our club.”

The match is the finale of a fantastic sporting weekend for the borough, with Martin Murray having his third world title tilt against the formidable Gennady Golovkin the night before in Monte Carlo.

The two global events will propel the town of St Helens on to the world sporting map this weekend.

In Saints’ case it will not be the first time with the club being crowned world champions twice before after beating Brisbane in 2001 and 2007.

Cunningham said: “We have been on the map for a long time and before we won the World Club in 2001 nobody knew about us.

“After we won that all the Aussie press suddenly knew who Keiron Cunningham, Sean Long and Paul Sculthorpe were and then you get renowned as one of the best players in the world.

“We are a good competition in Super League and we have a bunch of fine players. The difference between us and Australia is that we want to play rugby and some entertaining football.”

With Saints having a fully fit squad, apart from Luke Walsh, Cunningham will have to leave out some of his Grand Final winners for Sunday night’s showdown.

And he gave a strong indication that the team that dusted Salford so comprehensively last Thursday almost selects itself.

“Nothing is probably going to change from Salford last week. A team that performed as well as they did deserves to play against the best in the world in my eyes. I don’t think anything is going to change selection wise from that.

“Walshy is not coming in. The illness set him back, so we will look at Walshy for the Castleford game if he is ready,” Cunningham said.

One of the noticeable differences in Cunningham’s team this year has been in the pack. From the very first trial game there appears to be an all-for-one, one-for-all attitude with no backward steps.

Cunningham believes that this development has occurred naturally and has strengthened the bond within the team.

“They are a good group and really tight knit. You see teams trying to create things, where they walk out together. But for me you cannot fabricate a togetherness.

“This team has built a bond and that has strengthened every week.

“They put on a united front and they want to work for each other and they would probably die for each other at the minute.

“I have played in teams where you would want to do that and it just spurs you on to be good defensively and work for each other. It is a good place at the minute,” he said.