St Helens stun Penrith Panthers to win World Club Challenge on golden point

St Helens: champions of the world. The Merseyside town with a population barely reaching 100,000 has been the beating heart of Super League in recent years but now, it is officially home to the world’s best club rugby league side.

This pulsating contest was decided in the most dramatic way possible, Lewis Dodd kicking a golden point in overtime, but cannot be described without first explaining the context which makes this result all the more incredible. St Helens spend around a third of what NRL clubs do on salary. Their opponents here, Penrith, were littered with stars who have just helped them win back-to-back NRL titles. That does not happen all that often in Australia.

The Panthers side here included seven players who featured in last year’s World Cup final, too. St Helens weren’t just written off by the experts Down Under, they weren’t even expected to compete. But in the end, it was the side who weren’t even give a hope of victory that came out on top in the World Club Challenge, further solidifying their place as one of the greatest club sides the British game has ever produced.

Not since Wigan in 1994 has an English side travelled across the world and beaten an Australian side in their own backyard. That victory for Wigan against Brisbane nearly 30 years ago is regarded as one of the great performances by an English side; this one may even top it. This club, and this team, seems to enjoy achieving what nobody thinks they are capable of, underlined by their historic four consecutive Super League title victories.

How they won it was just as remarkable too. For most of the night they kept Penrith’s star-studded attack at arm’s length, forging a 12-0 lead courtesy of tries from Jack Welsby and Konrad Hurrell. Welsby was the game’s outstanding player and will almost certainly court interest from Australian clubs after this display – but his heart, like so many other members of this St Helens squad, is with the newly-crowned world champions.

Jack Welsby races away to score Saints’ first try at the BlueBet Stadium. Photograph: Mark Evans/AAP

But you expected Penrith to respond on home turf, and they did so in the second half. Izack Tago’s try on the hour mark halved the deficit and in doing so, piled the pressure back on the Saints, who had defended heroically for the majority of the first 40 minutes. But time and time again, Paul Wellens’ side put their bodies on the line to deny Penrith and, with barely a minute remaining, it looked like they would hold on.

Penrith had other ideas though, and when Stephen Crichton’s towering kick was fumbled by Welsby, Brian To’o collected to score the Panthers’ second, with Nathan Clearly nervelessly converting from out wide to send the game to extra-time. Surely at that point, the momentum was with Penrith, and you feared the Saints would fail to drag themselves off the floor for golden point.

Not a chance. It was perhaps fitting that on a night won by homegrown stars like Welsby and the 37-year-old James Roby, who continues to defy the laws of age with a 70-minute all-action display here, that it was another local lad who sealed victory. Crichton produced the decisive error, spilling the ball 30 metres from his own line, following a superb tackle from Hurrell which dislodged the ball from his grip.

The 21-year-old scrum-half Dodd, who spent most of last year injured with an Achilles injury, kept his nerve in the most important of moments, kicking the drop goal which secured a third world title for the Saints, adding to titles won in 2001 and 2007. This one, given the circumstances, will undoubtedly go down as the best.