Holders St Helens fielded an experimental line up but still had enough quality to comfortably reach the next round of the Carnegie Challenge Cup with victory over London Skolars.

Saints rattled in 11 tries without reply, with Chris Flannery, Willie Talau, James Roby and Kyle Eastmond grabbing two each.

Hooker Keiron Cunningham also returned to the fold after a six-week absence with a torn quad muscle.

It took Saints six minutes to open their account with Talau taking Matt Gidley's pass to go over following a fine break from man of the match Eastmond.

The part-timers were then temporarily reduced to 12 men when prop Puna Rasaubale was sin-binned for a late tackle on Eastmond on nine minutes.

Saints took advantage whilst he was off with Eastmond intercepting a stray ball from Paul Thorman to dash over from half way.

Steve Tyrer added the conversion to put Saints into double figures, but the Londoners made a game of it in the opening quarter with some robust tackling from the pack and some intelligent kicking from scrum half Jamie Nowland.

Saints kept plugging away and following a deep kick from a penalty, Roby went on a weaving 20 metre run to the line for an excellent solo score. Tyrer's straightforward kick struck the post and bounced out.

Straight from the kick-off Saints threw the ball about and were rewarded when Jon Wilkin's long pass found its way to centre Flannery, who inter-passed with wing Ade Gardner, before touching down.

It was turning into a rout with Roby again crossing from close range after 31 minutes, with Eastmond taking on the kicking duties and succeeding.

Eastmond added to his try tally when he took full back Gidley's pass to scramble over, adding the extras himself to make it 30-0 at the break.

Debutant Gary Wheeler had a try disallowed just after the restart, but he was soon on the scoreboard, taking Francis Meli's pass to touch down. Eastmond again added the extras.

Meli, who started the game on the bench and came on to play full-back, then provided the scoring pass for Talau, which Eastmond improved.

Skolars stemmed the scoring briefly, but Flannery crossed and was soon followed over the line by Wilkin to bring up the half century, with Eastmond converting the latter.

Wheeler and Flannery combined to send Gardner in for the concluding score of a convincing win.