FOR the first time in 20 years Saints had gone into a season as defending champions and Challenge Cup holders so the side of 1997 had a pretty hard act to follow.

It is fair to say that the season was something of a rollercoaster ride – and one that started off with a fair old bang.

Once again the season kicked off with the opening Challenge Cup rounds with Saints being paired with Wigan at Knowsley Road.

Well it was a tie that would certainly test Saints’ mettle and in the run up to the game the talk was of Bobbie Goulding’s transfer request.

Goulding, so often a match winner for Saints the previous year, would become the talking point of this match too – this time for the wrong reasons.

Saints were leading 10-8 when the combative Saints skipper clouted Wigan prop Neil Cowie flush in the face with a high tackle and was red-carded, with the Warriors squaring things up with the penalty once the fighting subsided.

It meant Saints had to play the entire second half with 12 – but on this occasion they were strongly backed by a raucous Knowsley Road crowd which was worth an extra man.

On the field Tommy Martyn came into his own, and he and Karle Hammond helped fill the breach left by the skipper.

Hammond craftily squeezed over for the try that nudged Saints ahead, with Martyn then fashioning the clincher for Paul Newlove.

And with the crowd hollering for more and Wigan throwing caution to the wind, Alan Hunte gleefully snaffled up Henry Paul’s pass to race the length of the field to cap a fine victory.

Goulding was to miss the next six matches after getting an initial eight game ban reduced on appeal – and in that time the skipper withdrew his transfer request.

In his place youngster Lee Briers came in for six matches, including the Challenge Cup wins over Hull, Keighley and Salford in the semi final.

Although both Anthony Sullivan and Alan Hunte scored hat-tricks in that 50-20 triumph, the highlight of the semi at Central Park was Keiron Cunningham racing in from half way as Saints booked their swift return to Wembley.

In a season that kept on producing stories, Goulding returned in time to get match fit for Wembley and Briers was sold to Warrington for £65,000 weeks before the team headed for the Twin Towers.

Later in the year Saints ended up buying another half back, paying Widnes £80,000 for Sean Long.

Saints again faced the Bradford Bulls and this time won more emphatically without the drama of the previous year. It was a very clinical display with Tommy Martyn in fine form to take the Lance Todd.

He scored two early tries, followed by scores from Hammond and Chris Joynt and Sullivan as Saints led 30-10 at the hour mark.

Two Bradford tries in the last quarter made it look closer, but there was no stopping Joynt – who had taken the captaincy in Goulding’s cup run absence – from taking the trophy from John Prescott.

That, to coin a phrase, was as good as it got.

Unlike the previous year when a steely Saints side kept the bit between their teeth – this one came off the rails.

The fixture planners kindly gave Bulls the chance to gain swift revenge at Odsal, then a few weeks later the horror show that was the 65-12 home defeat by Wigan.

The last thing Saints needed as this point was the visit of Cronulla, Auckland and Penrith in June for the home leg of the World Club Championships. Three heavy defeats followed – with the reverse fixtures Down Under going a similar way.

Bizarrely Saints still qualified for the knockout stages, where they were hammered 66-14 by Brisbane in the play-offs in Australia. The year, alas, was already done.

Saints had surrendered their league title to Bradford who finished the last ever first-past-the post season as runaway leaders on 40 points.

London were the surprise package in second on 33 points, with Saints trailing in third on 29, one point ahead of Wigan.

In Chris Joynt’s book – The Quiet Man – he cited players getting “too big for their boots and becoming a law unto themselves” after they had won the cup a second time. Joynt further explained that he told the board to sort out the decline or he would leave.

All of a sudden the bright new summer era had been shrouded by a dark cloud – and that feeling would linger for another season.