Sean Long kicked his 1,000th goal for St Helens as they overcame a spirited Huddersfield to make it two wins out of two at the start of Super League XIV.

Ironically, Long had another off day with the boot, missing four of his five conversion attempts, but his drop goal two minutes from the end wrapped up victory at the Galpharm Stadium.

New signing Tony Puletua had earlier broken the deadlock with his first try in Super League while England winger Ade Gardner also got on the scoresheet on his 200th appearance for the club.

Long kicked just one goal from six attempts in Saints' opening 26-14 win over Warrington and his misses looked likely to be more costly this time as Saints failed to kill off a plucky Giants side until the last five minutes.

St Helens made light of the absence of regular prop forwards Jason Cayless and James Graham thanks largely to an outstanding display of powerful running from Puletua, the former New Zealand forward looking a class act.

Huddersfield captain Brett Hodgson gave his side an early lead with a penalty and they had the lion's share of possession, but came up against a stonewall defence.

Saints were far more inventive and threatening in attack, with half-backs Leon Pryce and Long pulling the strings in familiar fashion.

They combined to get full-back Paul Wellens over for the first try on 14 minutes, while Long's solo break five minutes later set up the position from which Gardner scored his landmark try.

When centre Lee Gilmour scythed through for a third try on 31 minutes, St Helens looked to be running away with the game.

But Long's misses left the score at 12-2 at the break and Huddersfield came back into contention when centre Paul Whatuira re-gathered Luke Robinson's chip over the defence to score five minutes into the second half.

That gave the Giants all the encouragement they needed and, with loan hooker Scott Moore inspirational against his old team-mates, they forced Saints onto the back foot.

As Huddersfield piled on the pressure, the visitors came up with a series of errors, and both Brett Hodgson and Simon Finnigan reached the tryline without being able to ground the ball.

Puletua then came to the rescue, plunging over from close range and near enough to the posts to allow Long his first success with the boot.

Long then added his landmark drop goal before substitute Gary Wheeler's injury-time try gave the visitors a flattering margin of victory.