It was hoped that with the Autumn internationals break out of the way and a chance for all the injuries to heal, a refreshed squad would use the trip to Amman United to gain some badly needed points and confidence to bolster their league position for the new year.
Although Amman started the better, putting the visitors under a lot of pressure, after half an hour everything was going to plan with tries from Steff Henry (pictured) and Daff Walters and a good conversion from James Davies to produce a lead of 12 points to 7.
In the final ten minutes of the half however, the pressure from the home pack coupled to a suddenly brittle, wafer thin defence with missed tackles and a succession of handling errors, produced three tries with very little resistance and a complete turn round at half time with the home side well on top leading by 26 points to 12.
Three more tries in the ten minutes after the restart and at 45 points to 12 a cricket score was looking likely. A flurry of substitutions calmed the ship however and Saints were able to gain some respectability with tries from Gareth Jones and Wayne Rice although Amman popped in another of their own in between, thanks to a generous application of the penalty restart rules, which caught the visitors unawares.
The final tally at 50 points to 24 salvaged a bonus point for the visitors but did not hide the fact that this was a disappointing result and the challenges waiting for the rest of the season have not been helped by this performance.
Please wait as the server processes your request. Do not attempt to refresh the page.