HUMILIATION was piled on humiliation for Ian Millward, who in eight days has presided over the two heaviest defeats in Wigan’s 110-year history. His former St Helens team turned on him with a vengeance yesterday that beggared belief. The Challenge Cup has gone for the record 17-times winners; now all that remains is to spare the Warriors the unthinkable of relegation from the engage Super League. A trip to another of his former clubs — Leigh Centurions, on Friday — may go a long way to determining that fate.

Millward squirmed not far from his old seat at Knowsley Road, the scene of so many memorable triumphs in his six seasons there, as Wigan conceded 13 tries for the second week and again failed to trouble the scorers. James Graham broke his way through the shell of a Wigan team in injury time to exceed the 70-0 drubbing by Leeds Rhinos the previous Saturday. Millward had given warning that St Helens were a better team than Leeds. Not that he had anticipated this level of punishment. Wigan’s fourth successive defeat equalled their worst run since 1985, a year they went on to lift the cup and finish third in the league.

Salvation now would take the form of survival in the top flight, where they have been a prime force for the past quarter-century. Millward is confident that they can be again, yet even his long-term optimism was wearing thin after a rampant St Helens had teased and tormented his floundering outfit.

Determinedly cheery afterwards but evidently hurting, Millward said: “It can’t get much than worse this. I know it will get better, but short term we need a win. There’s a lot of hard work to be done. Being Wigan doesn’t mean we’ll be all right.”

He dropped the first hint that players “not up to it” will be shipped out and joked that Darren Abram, the Leigh coach, had the hardest job in rugby league analysing Wigan and working out how many gaps for his players to run into. Lose that game and Wigan’s relegation struggle will become grim reality for a club that have seen too many good players go and far too many inadequate replacements hired.

Careful throughout his month in charge not to refer to Millward, who was dismissed by St Helens for gross misconduct, Daniel Anderson praised the team that his predecessor had largely built for their ruthlessness and scintillating attack. Even without Sean Long, who suffered a broken wrist in training and is not expected back until the semi-finals at the end of July, and Jason Hooper, his half-back partner, retiring early with a shoulder injury, Saints were an irresistible force against a broken, bedraggled defence.

It was the first time in 86 years that Wigan had been “nilled” for a second match running. In truth, they never looked like scoring. A trickle of St Helens tries, the first by Lee Gilmour and Vinnie Anderson, became a flood from the second quarter onwards. Seven were scored by front-row forwards — Mark Edmondson packed a hat-trick into 16 minutes in the second half and Nick Fozzard helped himself to a couple in a man-of-the-match display — summing up Wigan’s agony in being outmuscled at every turn.

When Anderson and Paul Sculthorpe were not tearing Wigan apart up the middle, Paul Wellens, Jamie Lyon and Darren Albert were making yards with contemptuous ease. Edmondson’s support play was in a difference class to anything the visiting side could produce. The end was a relief for them.

SCORERS: St Helens: Tries: Gilmour, V Anderson, Fozzard 2, Hooper, Talau, Wellens, Edmondson 3, Lyon, Gardner, Graham. Goals: Sculthorpe 9, Lyon 2. Dropped goal: Sculthorpe.

ST HELENS: P Wellens; D Albert, J Lyon, W Talau, A Gardner; J Hooper, J Wilkin; N Fozzard, K Cunningham, P Anderson, L Gilmour, V Anderson, P Sculthorpe. Substitutes: J Roby, M Edmondson, M Bennett, J Graham.

WIGAN WARRIORS: S Gleeson; B Dallas, M Aspinwall, S Wild, B Carney; K Brown, D Moran; J Seuseu, T Newton, D Sculthorpe, D Allen, D Tickle, B Beswick. Substitutes: H Hansen, W Godwin, J Guisset, B Hargreaves.

Referee: A Klein.

• Toulouse caused one of the greatest upsets in the history of the Challenge Cup with a 40-24 victory at home to Widnes Vikings yesterday, becoming the first French team to reach the semi-finals. The part-timers raced into a 20-0 lead after 25 minutes, were 20-12 ahead at half-time and pulled away with three more tries in the second half.