Bradford Bulls 0, St Helens 35: The last point of the game was once again scored by Sean Long.

Although the 80th-minute field goal he landed at Odsal last night had nowhere near as much significance as the one last October that clinched the Grand Final, it made the same statement.

We are Saints and no matter how unlikely it seems, we are always going to be your bogey side - and we are going to love it.

At Odsal, 34-0 up, only Saints would want to kick that extra point just to rub salt into the gaping wound they had just opened up.

Smug Saints coach Ian Millward may be right in saying that "it is just two points" but in inflicting a third straight home defeat on Bradford (for the first time in 11 years) and grabbing a first Super League win at Odsal, the Lancashire side plunged Brian Noble's men into a humiliating mini-crisis.

And the loss of skipper Robbie Paul with a broken arm was a further hammer blow on a woeful night for Bradford rugby.

Forget the fact that Saints were seventh in the table before this game - Bradford's first point-less night for four years - this was always going to be a tough game.

But nobody could have predicted how tough as the Challenge Cup holders gifted the Super League champions a 22-point start with a catalogue of inexplicable errors.

You would have thought they had never seen inclement weather before, so poor was the home side's handling as they made error after rain-soaked error.

The tension of the opening salvos, which heavily featured the return of Bulls prop idol Stuart Fielden after nine weeks out, was broken after just 12 minutes when the visitors took the lead.

Mick Higham slipped between Danny Gartner and Mike Forshaw, Sean Long swung his left boot and Saints were 6-0 up.

The defence was poor to allow Higham in, but it was nowhere near as hapless as what was to follow.

Three minutes later Paul Deacon's attempt to send an awkward grubber through on the last tackle succeeded only in giving Higham the chance to run 75 metres to score after a lucky ricochet.

Minutes later only the video referee saved the Bulls from further disappointment as it was ruled Keiron Cunningham was offside when sending Darren Smith through to score after a Paul Sculthorpe kick had fortuitously hit a Bull.

But at 12-0, Millward's men were firmly in the driving seat as they dealt with the treacherous conditions with the minimum of fuss.

Bradford, however, were getting their knickers in a twist on nearly every occasion the rain-soaked ball came into their backfield.

And there was no greater demonstration of this than in the 35th minute when Lesley Vainikolo had to deal with a Sculthorpe special.

Not only did the winger drop it, he was so intent on escaping his in-goal area that he allowed himself to be dispossessed by the Great Britain star to hand Darren Albert the simplest of touchdowns.

And five minutes later, after Long had missed a penalty for some Jimmy Lowes' interference, it happened again.

Long this time provided the kick, Leon Pryce the horrendous error (it would be an insult to pupils to call it a schoolboy error) and Chris Joynt the touchdown.

Even though Long missed the conversion, it was now half-time, 22-0 to the Saints and the Bradford fans were booing - well, the ones that hadn't already gone home were.

And any hopes of a comeback were dashed even before the angry words of Brian Noble would have stopped ringing in the players' ears.

After just 35 seconds Paul knocked on from a Sculthorpe kick and another 60 seconds later and 'Scully' had dived through three tackles for a try - confirmed by the night's fourth referral to the video referee.

Seven minutes later the final, and best, try of the game was scored.

Long moved diagonally towards the left touchline before brilliantly off-loading for Jason Hooper to dive over in the corner.

The scrum half added the extras and the Saints looked to be done for the day.

Bradford improved a little at this point, with Lesley Vainikolo finally coming to life, but it was a bit too late.

The game began to descend into a scrappy affair with play the balls getting messy and players getting confrontational.

And unfortunately for Bradford during an innocuous tackle by Sculthorpe on Paul, the Kiwi landed awkwardly and left the field bound for the Bradford Royal Infirmary with what was to turn out to be a double fracture of his left

arm.

The Bulls came close to getting some points when Vainikolo looked to have squeezed through a clump of Saints players, but the video referee ruled he had failed to cross the whitewash and the home side had to be content with the nil next to their names.

The final act of the night saw Long send over his kick for the extra point but by then it was game over - and a lot of the fickle fans had already left.