When Daniel Anderson's Saints class of 2006 swept all before it

SAINTS went into the 2006 season fired by the sense of injustice and hurt of how the previous season had unravelled.

Despite finishing top of the pile, injuries to Sean Long and Darren Albert had robbed them of the chance to have a fair at the play offs.

As such the words “unfinished business” dripped off the lips of the players. That motivation, a coach with a first off-season under his belt, key new signings and a core of key players in their absolute prime produced the cocktail for an unrivalled year of success.

Saints swept all before them - winning the Challenge Cup, League Leaders Shield and Grand Final, losing just four league games during the course of a gruelling 35 game season by margins 3, 2, 1 and 4 points.

The individual honours also, inevitably, came to Knowsley Road with full back Paul Wellens winning the Harry Sunderland and the Man of Steel, Sean Long bagging a record third Lance Todd, Daniel Anderson taking the coach of the year award with James Roby earning the Young Player of the Year title.

The icing on the cake was being voted BBC Sports Personality Team of the Year, with Anderson taking the coach’s prize for that too.

If they had let them enter Eurovision, Crufts and Chelsea Flower Show they would have won those, too.

It was a remarkable year and the work had undoubtedly started on that before 2005 was over.

Coach Anderson was able to mould his team, on and off the pitch.

Defensively Saints had tightened, moving further away from the adage under Millward of if “they score 30, we’ll score 40”.

Saints ended the league programme with 939 for, but only 430 against.

To assist, Anderson had recruited technical adviser Alan Wilson, who got to work on improving the players’ individual skills.

On the field, Anderson recruited three players, who all added size, among their other attributes.

Francis Meli came in for Darren Albert, who returned to Australia, Kiwi test prop Jason Cayless reinforced the front row and Leon Pryce was converted into a six.

Anderson certainly had assembled the tools to do the job, the rest of was down to the players.

ANY team featuring Paul Wellens, Sean Long and Keiron Cunningham at the peak of their powers is going to do well.

When you throw in a genuine Australian superstar like Jamie Lyon and add the bonus of two youngsters of rare quality in the Blackbrook Jameses, Roby and Graham you can begin to see why Saints were untouchable in 2006.

It is hard to identify one part of Saints’ game that made them such an invincible force.

Starting with the front row, Daniel Anderson’s addition of experienced Kiwi Jason Cayless gave Saints a genuine ‘awesome foursome’.

With the safe hands and considerable size of Paul Anderson, the explosive work off the bench of Samoan powerhouse Maurie Fa’asavalu and the consolidation of James Graham it gave a quartet of props that meant even a player of Nick Fozzard’s ability could not force his way in for the two big finals.

Cunningham and James Roby offered different physical approaches, but in tandem they were a devastating partnership at dummy half.

Long ran the team from seven, allowing half back partner Leon Pryce to chime in with devastating effect.

Some were concerned that Pryce, who had largely played full back, centre and wing at Bradford, did not have the makings of a number six – but Anderson had other ideas.

The team benefited from that with Wellens crediting plenty of the 22 tries he scored that year as being a result of supporting the long-striding Pryce.

And of course, if all else failed, Saints always had Lyon to pull something out of his considerable bag of tricks.

The Australian was an absolute magician – in England while still in his prime - weighing in with 22 tries and kicked 164 goals that year.

And his flicked passes also contributed to wing partner Ade Gardner crossing 31 times that term.

But there plenty of unsung heroes, too, with Lee Gilmour and Willie Talau often overlooked for the considerable input they made to the team, especially with some punishing defence on the left edge.

And Jason Hooper, who essentially replaced the injury-plagued skipper Paul Sculthorpe at 13, waded through plenty of the team’s dirty work, cleaning up and chasing kickers and getting many a whack for his trouble.

Saints started the campaign in the capital, with Wellens grabbing a hat-trick in the side’s 40-16 win over Harlequins.

In the league they saw off all comers with the 46-0 triumph at Hull FC representing Saints’ first win at the KC Stadium.

The by-product of that game was to force the departure of Hull boss John Kear, and under steely Australian Peter Sharp the Black and Whites became Saints main rivals that term.

Just when bookmakers began taking odds on the team going unbeaten through the season, it became unlucky 13 with Saints losing 19-16 at Huddersfield.

Saints marched on in the cup, seeing off Doncaster, Bradford and Catalans to make the semi final.

But there was one brief hiatus in the middle of June, with Saints being edged by a rejuvenated Hull at Knowsley Road and then being edged at Odsal the week late.

There was no panic and normal service was soon resumed.

In the league they even survived the dismissal of Jamie Lyon at Headingley to beat the Rhinos before hammering Hull KR in the Challenge Cup semi final to make it through to the Twickenham showpiece.

The first of the club’s trophies was duly collected with the masterful Sean Long grabbing his third Lance Todd in a 42-12 triumph over Huddersfield.

The game’s iconic image, however, was Jon Wilkin scoring two tries despite sporting an unusual bandage to stem the blood from a badly broken nose, sustained in the opening minutes.

The week before the final Saints had sent a junior team to Catalans - and such was the spirit in the camp they very nearly won that too.

Saints bounced to Old Trafford after a nervy and tense semi final 12-8 triumph over Hull, with Gardner and Francis Meli scoring the crucial tries to gain their first appearance at Old Trafford since 2002.

It was a tougher, closer game than the 26-4 scoreline suggests, but Saints ground Hull down, and hit them at crucial times of the game.

(All pictures: Bernard Platt)