Melbourne Storm 44–6 St Helens — 2000 World Club Challenge
JJB Stadium, Wigan · Attendance: 13,394
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
2000 World Club Challenge: Melbourne Storm 44–6 St Helens, at JJB Stadium, Wigan.
Relaunched as the two-team, one-off format still used today.
Sourcing caveat: Melbourne's goal-kicker and conversion count were not confirmed in sources found (they scored via 8 tries with no confirmed goals despite the 44-point total implying some kicking contribution — reported as found rather than reconciled by assumption). Try-scoring minutes for Hill, Morgan and Kimmorley not confirmed.
Scoring timeline
| 5′ | Melbourne Storm — try, Moule |
| 11′ | Melbourne Storm — try, Evans |
| 30′ | Melbourne Storm — try, Bai |
| 73′ | St Helens — try, Hoppe |
Tries with a sourced minute, in order scored. Tries whose exact minute isn't recorded in available sources appear in the Scorers table below but not here.
Scorers
| Melbourne Storm | Tries: Moule 5'; Evans 11'; Bai 30'; Hill (2); Morgan; Kimmorley |
| St Helens | Tries: Hoppe 73' Goals: Long (1 penalty goal) |
Teams
| Melbourne Storm | St Helens | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Robbie Ross | Fullback | Paul Atcheson | 1 |
| 2 | Brad Watts | Wing | Sean Hoppe | 15 |
| 3 | Aaron Moule | Centre | Kevin Iro | 3 |
| 4 | Tony Martin | Centre | Paul Newlove | 4 |
| 5 | Marcus Bai | Wing | Chris Smith | 2 |
| 6 | Scott Hill | Five-eighth | Tommy Martyn | 20 |
| 7 | Brett Kimmorley | Halfback | Sean Long | 7 |
| 8 | Wayne Evans | Front row | Julian O'Neill | 10 |
| 9 | Richard Swain | Hooker | Paul Wellens | 17 |
| 10 | Robbie Kearns | Front row (c) | Sonny Nickle | 12 |
| 11 | Paul Marquet | Second row | Chris Joynt | 11 |
| 12 | Stephen Kearney | Second row | Bryan Henare | 18 |
| 13 | Matt Rua | Lock | Paul Sculthorpe | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Danny Williams | Apollo Perelini | 8 | |
| 15 | Tasesa Lavea | Fereti Tuilagi | 14 | |
| 16 | Russell Bawden | Anthony Stewart | 19 | |
| 18 | Dane Morgan | John Stankevitch | 26 | |
| Chris Anderson | Coach | Ellery Hanley | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Stuart Cummings |
| Player of the match | Brett Kimmorley (Melbourne) |
Match report
Melbourne, in only their third year of existence, delivered a statement performance, racing to a 20-2 half-time lead and posting what was then the biggest winning margin in World Club Challenge history. Aaron Moule and Wayne Evans scored inside the first 11 minutes, and Marcus Bai and Scott Hill added further first-half tries as St Helens, missing the injured Kevin Iro and a flu-hit Chris Joynt, struggled defensively. Man-of-the-match Brett Kimmorley controlled the game superbly, and further tries from Dane Morgan and Kimmorley himself in the second half compounded Saints' misery; Sean Hoppe's late try was scant consolation. Coach Ellery Hanley conceded Saints "didn't defend and stop their offloads," while Chris Anderson credited Melbourne's execution of "a new style of football." The match relaunched the World Club Challenge as the streamlined, one-off, two-team format used ever since, replacing the failed 1997 restructure.This match belonged to the modern, annual World Club Challenge era launched in 2000, pitting that season's NRL Premiers directly against the same season's Super League Grand Final winners in a single fixture. The fixture as a whole began as a single unofficial match in 1976 and was repeated only sporadically through the 1980s and early 1990s: it wasn't played at all in 1988, 1990, 1993, or 1995-96, the last of those gaps caused by the Super League War splitting Australian rugby league into two rival competitions. The 1997 attempt to relaunch it as a 22-club, two-conference "World Club Championship" — five Australasian clubs touring Europe and five European clubs touring Australasia simultaneously — reportedly lost more than $5 million and was shelved for three years. It returned in 2000 as the simple one-off match still used today, missing only during the brief 2015-2017 multi-match "World Club Series" expansion (when the marquee fixture still determined the World Club Challenge title, alongside several other NRL-Super League pairings played the same week) and the 2021-2022 Covid-19 cancellations and the 2025 withdrawal by Penrith Panthers. The result here was Melbourne Storm's 1st World Club Challenge title and the 8th staging of the fixture since its unofficial 1976 debut.