A second Millennium Magic event ended last night in a party for a white-hot St Helens and a wake for an utterly humiliated Wigan Warriors, who were mown down by ten tries on a weekend of prolific points-scoring beneath the roof in Cardiff, including three by the indefatigable Sean Long, his first hat-trick for five years.

Long personified the skills, breath-taking impudence and blistering support play that left Wigan in tatters yesterday. His 27-point haul was compiled in an hour, although, in truth, some of the steam went out of Saints after they had raced into a 35-0 lead after an extraordinarily one-sided first half.

St Helens had easily beaten Wigan at the Millennium Stadium last year and in the 2004 Challenge Cup final, but last night’s exhibition was in a different class. When Long rubbed Wigan’s noses in it by cheekily dropping a goal at the end of the half, there were cries from some Warriors fans of “you’re not fit to wear the shirt”, although the cherry-and-whites did slightly redeem themselves in a more resurgent second period.

Daniel Anderson, the St Helens coach, said: “I thought we were in the mood to really put a performance on someone. In the first half, we completed 21 of 21 sets, and that’s unheard of.”

Wigan were blown away by half a dozen first-half touchdowns. “The first 20-25 minutes were embarrassing, because we’d talked all week about the need for a good start,” Brian Noble, the Wigan coach, said. “We’ve certainly got some improvement in us, that’s for sure. I’m part of this and we need to fix things up quickly.”

Wigan mounted nothing in attack for 40 minutes and were continually sliced open down the middle and out wide. The ball movement of the players in the blue shirts was mesmeric at times. On the few occasions that Wigan gained possession, they proved as clueless as they were disorientated trying to stop their runaway rivals, who moved two points clear in third place.

Their confidence was shot early. Long picked up from dummy half and ghosted round a posse of defenders. At the back of the Wigan defence, Richard Mathers was the rabbit in the headlights of an express train. The full back eyed up Jon Wilkin as the Great Britain forward hurtled towards him, but was nonchalantly brushed aside.

Luck failed to come to the Warriors’ rescue, when Sean O’Loughlin’s offload rebounded off Willie Talau.

Francis Meli hesitated, imagining he might be offside, but picked up speed over 50 metres as he outstripped the despairing Joel Tomkins for the third try - a video refereeing decision described as “disappointing” by Noble.

Matt Gidley directed an exquisitely angled grubber for Ade Gardner to dab down at the corner, followed by Talau barging past the hapless Wilkin and Leon Pryce breaking from deep to supply Long with another.

Within 90 seconds of the restart, Thomas Leuluai reached out for the line in briefly stopping the rot. But Saints struck back with three further tries. Gidley ran a classy line in furnishing Long with his hat-trick, Talau added his second from a scrum and Gardner kept his cool in touching down, despite Leuluai’s crass attempt to trip him. Harrison Hansen and Mick Higham posted Wigan’s second and third tries, but to little avail as Lee Gilmour completed another rout.

Six matches over two days produced 61 tries and enough defensive headaches to last until the next Millennium Magic, which could end up as Murrayfield Magic, with a potential switch to Edinburgh for the May Day weekend next year.

Scorers: St Helens: Tries: Long 3, Wilkin, Meli, Gardner 2, Talau 2, Gilmour. Goals: Long 7, Gidley. Dropped goal: Long. Wigan Warriors: Tries: Leuluai, Hansen, Higham. Goals: Richards 2.

St Helens: P Wellens; A Gardner, M Gidley, W Talau, F Meli; L Pryce, S Long; J Cayless, K Cunningham, J Graham, L Gilmour, C Flannery, J Wilkin. Interchange: J Roby, M Bennett, B Hargreaves, P Clough.

Wigan Warriors: R Mathers; L Colbon, D Goulding, G Carmont, P Richards; T Barrett, T Leuluai; S Fielden, M Higham, P Prescott, H Hansen, A Coley, S O’Loughlin. Interchange: T Coyle, I Paleaaesina, J Tomkins, E O’Carroll.

Referee: P Bentham.