ELVIS never watched any rugby league but the lyrics from his Didja Ever probably summed up Friday’s trip to Headingley.

The writing was on the wall for Saints from the moment Kyle Amor dropped the first carry from the kick off – and the subsequent mauling was all they deserved.

After the previous meeting between these two sides at Langtree Park much had been made of the need for a good start.

But once again it was a shocker, with Saints unrecognisable from the team that had chalked up a five-match winning run barely a few weeks ago.

A good half dozen players had nightmares, with schoolboy errors, loose carries, play-the-ball fumbles and sloppy passing contributing to a 50 per cent first-half completion rate that was always going to drain energy and burn them on the scoreboard.

Roared on by a season’s best 18,514 gate, four first-half tries gave Leeds an unassailable 22-0 lead at the break and left Saints with little to play for but the need to avoid the sort of 70 point maulings that were twice inflicted on Ian Millward’s sides there in the noughties.

Sloppy play was punished by the ruthless leaders with Leeds’ opener from Kallum Watkins coming after Paul Aiton had intercepted Mark Percival’s flicked back pass to nobody.

Then when Matty Dawson made a hash of a play-the-ball, Leeds were in again with Kylie Leuluai proving a physical mismatch for Percival from close range.

Saints’ horror show continued when Percival’s restart kick went out on the full, and in the next passage wing Ryan Hall was flying past Dawson in the corner.

It would have been worse had Jimmy Keinhorst not dropped the ball over the line after Dawson had let the kick downfield bounce.

It was temporary respite with Ash Handley crossing for the first of his hat-trick.

Saints came out with more purpose in the second half and when an otherwise subdued Luke Walsh launched a high kick for Matt Fleming to catch, Josh Jones was up on the inside to clean up for the try.

Carl Ablett resumed the Leeds points procession, despite being down to 12 men with Zak Hardaker in the sin bin, before Handley and Jordan Turner swapped tries.

Saints showed a flicker of resistance when James Roby threaded a fine kick towards the posts for Amor to tantalisingly cut the deficit to 14 points, but that was as close as they got with Handley dashing through for his hat-trick and Hall adding another.

Oh, and to cap a thoroughly miserable outing, the motorway was closed on the way back, meaning many fans only got home after 1am.

Didja ever get one of them days when you should a-stayed in bed?