KEIRON Cunningham expressed his bitter disappointment after seeing his Saints team succumb to the heaviest ever World Club Challenge defeat.

Saints lost 39-0 to South Sydney Rabbitohs, but the Saints boss vowed that his young will learn a harsh lesson from the tough evening.

Cunningham said: "I'm really disappointed.

"We got schooled by the best side in the world. If we have to learn a good lesson from today's game it is sometimes you have to lose in a big fashion to learn some lessons.

"We did that early season - when we lost in the friendly against Widnes - and we came back stronger. This will be a good education for my players, especially the younger players."

He believes the start to the game punished his team - and that set the tone.

"At the start of the game, I wasn't sure what set of rules we were playing to - we were playing to international rules but they certainly weren't the ones I read - but the first 20 hurt us pretty bad.

"When you are playing against the best sides in the world you cannot afford to get off to starts like that. We knew what they were going to do and didn't counteract it. They completed at the high percentage and we didn't," Cunningham said.

Saints were not helped by errors, defensive misreads, loose carries and some cases of pure bad luck but he was not completely despondent despite seeing his side mastered singling out his big men for praise.

He said: "Our middles played great all night; they worked hard, hung on in there, but our edges were horrible."