St Helens have been fined �25,000 after being found guilty of fielding a weakened team for a Super League match at Bradford.

Saints went into the match on 20 April with the Bulls, a week before the Challenge Cup final, without 12 regulars.

Coach Ian Millward said the absentees were carrying injuries, although they all played in the Cup final defeat by Wigan at Murrayfield a week later.

Millward maintained he was acting in the best interests of his players' welfare.

Bradford won the game 54-22 and Saints played the final 25 minutes with only 12 men.

The fine was handed out by an independent three-man committee, drawn from the League's 23-strong advisory panel.

After a three-and-a-half-hour hearing, the panel said Saints were found to have "engaged in conduct prejudicial to the interests of the game".

It said the club had breached RFL bye-laws section three, clauses 1d and 23 and fined them the equivalent of their prize money as runners-up in the Cup final.

The League declined to comment on the ruling.

St Helens chief executive Brian Kelly, who attended the hearing at League headquarters, did not comment but a club news conference is scheduled for Tuesday.

But Millward said after the ruling: "I know they're (Kelly and club chairman Eamonn McManus) surprised and disappointed but they'll be making some comment tomorrow."

Lost revenue

Both Millward and Kelly had earlier this month been told they would not face individual charges after the League's operational board investigated possible bye-law breaches.

Bradford chairman Chris Caisley said his club lost around �35,000 at the turnstiles as a result of St Helen's under-strength side.

Caisley said St Helens should be heavily fined, as his club were in 1989 for fielding a weakened team.