St Helens demonstrated their enduring appetite for the big occasion to deny Catalans Dragons a fairytale ending to their first Carnegie Challenge Cup final and claim an 11th success at the new Wembley.

In retaining the trophy they lifted in equally emphatic fashion at Twickenham 12 months earlier, Saints picked up from where they left at the old Wembley in 1997 when they completed back-to-back Cup final victories over Bradford.

The national stadium has taken on a dramatic new look since the last Cup final eight years ago but some things, it seems, never change.

St Helens, the modern team of all talents, quelled the early fire of the pumped-up Dragons to justify their pre-match odds of 1-12 and secure their fourth Cup final triumph in the last seven years.

There were fleeting moments in the first half when the French club threatened to make nonsense of their odds of 13-2 and repeat the feat of Sheffield Eagles in 1998 but their 2,000 fans in the 84,241 crowd were stunned into silence in a one-sided second half.

After a scoreless first half-hour dominated largely by the Catalans in the 28-degree temperatures, the game burst into life with three tries in eight minutes.

Substitute James Roby, whose previous visit to Wembley was to play in the curtain-raiser to the 1997 final, had the distinction of scoring the first try at the new stadium while the Lance Todd Trophy as man of the match was shared - for only the second time in history - by Paul Wellens and Leon Pryce.

There was little hint of the rout to come, though, as the Catalans harried the holders into making errors and conceding a stream of early penalties.

The French team enjoyed a lion's share of possession which enabled them to exert most of the early pressure but they lacked the patience near the Saints line to make it count.

They thought they had scored on 23 minutes when second rower Jason Croker, at 34 the oldest player in Super League, demonstrated his agility by leaping up with Pryce to catch Jones' high kick and touch down only for slow-motion replays to reveal he was just over the dead-ball line.

Having weathered the early storm, St Helens gradually assumed command, with James Graham and Roby making telling contributions from the bench.

Pryce twice went close after jinking runs before he eventually got over the line, only to be turned on his back by hard-working full-back Clint Greenshields.

But the pressure told on 32 minutes when the fresh legs of Roby took him past loose forward Gregory Mounis in a trademark dash from dummy half and he had the energy to shake off the attempted tackles of Croker and Kane Bentley to open the scoring.

Long's easy conversion made it 6-0 but his knock-on gifted the Dragons a perfect attacking position and half-backs Jones and Mogg combined to get winger Younes Khattabi over at the corner four minutes later.

Had the French side been able to turn around just 6-4 in arrears, they would have fancied their chances of pulling off an upset but Saints struck crucially with just 15 seconds left on the clock.

Long and Pryce created an overlap and right winger Ade Gardner took Matt Gidley's pass and beating a desperate lunge from Greenshields to touch down at the corner.

Long then piled on the agony with the touchline goal to open up an eight-point gap and the game quickly ran away from the Catalans in the second half.

Full-back Wellens pounced on an error from the over-worked Greenshields to claim his 23rd try of the season and 19-year-old second rower Paul Clough, a late choice for the vacancy on the Saints bench, took a smart offload from Pryce to stretch Saints' lead to 22-4 after 50 minutes.

Dragons winger Justin Murphy swooped on a wayward pass from St Helens loose forward Jon Wilkin to score a 40-metre try but it was nothing more than consolation.

Long kicked a penalty and then converted Gardner's second try three minutes from the end, which came courtesy of smart work from Wellens.