Saints' defence key to Challenge Cup win at Leeds Rhinos

They were always in control  with a converted first half try from Daryl Clark and a couple of Jonny Lomax penalties cancelling out a Harry Newman interception.

In the second half Saints added further tries from Jon Bennison and Alex Walmsley to go into the hat for the Challenge Cup quarter final.

Wellens said: "I am really pleased with the players. There's a psychological challenge attached tonight for a couple of reasons.

"One, obviously, we are coming back to the place where you won last week, we experienced a similar situation last year with Hull and didn't deal with it well.

"But then also you add on to that, it's the Challenge Cup – it’s a knockout competition. And if you don't perform there's pretty severe consequences to that in terms of sport.

"The way the players handled I thought was first class and for I think large parts of that game we were really dominant."

Saints were without Tommy Makinson and Lewis Dodd and lost Morgan Knowles with an arm injury in the first half.

In Dodd's absence with a groin issue Moses Mbye jumped in at scrum half and performed well.

Wellens said: "One thing that we had all last year was we had our 1-6 -7 play every game, but throughout the course of pre-season we didn't have Lewis Dodd train with us for quite a number of weeks of that.

"Throughout that preseason period Moses was training in the halves all the time and doing a really good job.

"So we knew that, that should Moses be called upon to play in the halves we knew what he was capable of.

"I thought the way he handled that was first class.

"He's obviously an experienced player, but with that experience he showed his maturity, his calmness, his composure, and I thought the way he handled his last plays was first class as well.

"And that's a credit to him because it’s not easy to step into a position that you haven't played for a long time, but he certainly made it look a lot easier tonight."