St Helens jumped to second in the Super League table with victory over Catalans in a scrappy game at Knowsley Road.

Winger Ade Gardner claimed two of the home side's six touchdowns to move to the top of the try-scoring charts.

Chris Flannery opened the scoring for Saints before Keiron Cunningham and James Graham extended their advantage.

Adam Mogg got the Dragons off the mark after the half-time break but Gardner's brace and Leon Pryce's late try sealed the win for Daniel Anderson's side.

The fluent way Saints began suggested the visitors were going to be on the end of a hammering.

Sean Long's perfectly-judged grubber kick bounced up perfectly for Flannery to score before the home side quickly added a second try, Cunningham going over from close range after good work by Pryce.

The Dragons' kicking game just gifted them possession to launch yet another attack, so it was only a matter of time before Saints ran in another try.

After taking a tap penalty for Remi Casty's high tackle on James Roby, Paul Wellens stretched the home defence, allowing Graham to spin through a challenge for a simple try.

Mogg got on the end of Casey McGuire's deft reverse pass to trot over unchallenged for Catalans after the interval.

A succession of penalties and handling errors broke up the momentum of the game before Clint Greenshields was sin-binned for stealing the ball.

Gardner should have scored when Graham was incorrectly adjudged to have knocked on, but the winger's 14th try of the season was not long in coming, set up by slick handling by Matt Gidley.

A burst of pace gave Gardner his second as Saints put the game beyond the Dragons' reach.

Pryce then wrapped things up at the end, although the sight of Lee Gilmour being helped off with a leg injury took the shine off the home team's victory.

Greenshields scored for the visitors at the death but it was too late to make a difference.

St Helens coach Daniel Anderson:

"I've been in plenty of games which were great adverts for the game, but that wasn't one. Catalans were terrible and we were poor.

"It was ugly. I think mediocre is overstating it. We've got no excuse, we were very much below average. Playing badly but still winning - we can take that.

"We trained fantastic this week and gave every indication that we were going to produce a crisp, energetic performance. Maybe the emotion of last week's Challenge Cup took a lot out of us."

Catalans coach Mick Potter:

"I thought we played okay football in patches. "Going 16-0 down makes it a pretty tough ask against a team like that. When they get on a roll, they are tough to stop."

St Helens: Wellens, Gardner, Gidley, Talau, Meli, Pryce, Long, Cunningham, Cayless, Gilmour, Wilkin, Roby, Bennett, Flannery, Graham, Hargreaves, Clough, Tyrer, Fa'asavalu.

Catalans Dragons: Bosc, Carlaw, Casty, Chan, Croker, Duport, Fakir, Ferriol, Gorrell, Greenshields, Guisset, Khattabi, McGuire, Mogg, Mounis, Pelo, Raguin, Touxagas, Wilson.