Sale struck a blow for rugby union with a surprise victory over Super League champions St Helens in the cross-code challenge at Knowsley Road.

Saints were predictably over-run at the 15-man game and narrowly failed to claw back a 41-0 deficit as the Sharks, inspired by former league experts Jason Robinson and Apollo Perelini, adapted remarkably well to the league code.

St Helens would have snatched a draw had Sean Long succeeded with a last-minute conversion attempt but the Great Britain scrum-half was unable to battle against a stiff breeze and he missed five of his seven kicks at goal.

The consolation for the Super League men was a share of bumper gate receipts from the 12,257 crowd, which caused a 15-minute delay and was bettered only twice last summer.

St Helens clearly missed Super League Man of Steel Paul Sculthorpe, who was ruled out with a recurrence of the leg injury that blighted him at the end of last season.

They also looked particularly rusty on their return to action after a two-month lay-off and, even at league, their display was characterised by a series of forced passes and fumbles.

The Super League champions were ground into submission in a first half in which the Sharks dominated both possession and territory to create space for their wingers to run in three of their seven tries.

A rolling maul in the opening minutes which had the limited Saints forwards back-pedalling 30 yards downfield set the tone for the opening half as Sale controlled all the set-piece play and frequently turned over what ball the rugby league side were able to muster.

The penalties went 9-3 to the visitors and the home crowd could not complain about the handling of referee Dave Pearson, even though the biggest cheer of the first half came in ironic fashion when the official blew up for a Sale forward pass.

The crowd chanted "boring" as Sale maintained their relentless forward march and their perfectly legitimate tactics were mercilessly ridiculed at half-time by former St Helens favourite Neil Holding on the tannoy.

Acutely aware of their limitations, Saints declined to take on their visitors at their own game, kicking at first phase, but Robinson lapped up the opportunity to run the ball back at them.

Winger Steve Maden went closest to scoring a try but Saints' attacks were few and far between.

Sale left winger Steve Hanley, who trained with Saints last summer, grabbed two tries and right winger Mark Cueto claimed one while the rest came from forwards Phil Davies (2), Dean Schofield and Stuart Turner.

Scrum-half Richard Wigglesworth was able to convert just three of the tries but that was just enough in the end to secure victory.

Saints winger Ade Gardner scored a couple of tries and others came from Maden, Paul Newlove, Chris Joynt and John Kirkpatrick.

The splendid spirit in which the game was played was illustrated in the dying minutes when skipper Joynt persuaded referee Karl Kirkpatrick, who penalised the Sharks 9-1, not to send Nick Walshe to the sin bin for repeated interference.