Holders St Helens breezed through to the next round of the Carnegie Challenge Cup with a convincing win over National League Batley.

Saints, who were missing their inspirational captain Paul Sculthorpe and a host of other stars including Jason Cayless, James Roby and Willie Talau, romped home against a Bulldogs side who could not handle the hosts' formidable attacking arsenal.

Saints' backbone of the team - Sean Long, Paul Wellens, Leon Pryce and Keiron Cunningham - all starred though as the engage Super League team ran riot.

And although players' focus may have been on the Wigan clash on good Friday, St Helens were in no mood to take the foot off the gas as they looked to keep hold of the cup they won at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium

last year.

Ade Gardener got Saints ticking over after only four minutes and then full-back Wellens crashed over for another simple try after he benefited from some good work from Long in midfield.

From that point the game, still only 10 minutes old, was effectively over as Saints went on to plunder a further nine scores to rack up 54 points at the break.

The home side were breaking tackles with considerable ease and they finished off a series of clean breaks with converted scores.

Rookie centre Steven Tyrer ensured he got plenty of kicking practice as he stroked over eight first half conversions and a further three in the second half to finish with a 22-point haul.

During the try-scoring procession Wellens went on to score a double as did Maurie Fa'asavalu and Lee Gilmour - who looked in great form ahead of the Wigan test next week.

Cunningham, who caused all kinds of problems for the Bulldogs at the ruck, also went over for an easy try during a relentless first period.

And not to be out done by the forwards was Australian centre Matt Gidley - who ran in a try out wide and Francis Meli showed his electrifying pace to cross to put Saints completely out of sight early on.

Batley did enjoy a small spell of good pressure which resulted in tries from Tim Spears, Kris Lythes and Jason Mossot - with Ian Gordon tagging the extras - after Saints temporarily dozed off. But that was as good as it got for the Yorkshiremen.

Saints soon increased their lead when James Graham and Paul Sculthorpe's deputy, Paul Clough, powered over and the Saints were threatening three figures.

That target was well in reach when John Wilkin touched down, with Meli going over for his second, but Daniel Anderson's men settled for what they had with nine minutes left on the clock.