Sydney Roosters 38–0 St Helens — 2003 World Club Challenge
Reebok Stadium, Bolton · Attendance: 19,807
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
2003 World Club Challenge: Sydney Roosters 38–0 St Helens, at Reebok Stadium, Bolton.
Sourcing caveat: Try-scoring minutes not confirmed in sources found.
Scorers
| Sydney Roosters | Tries: Byrne; Fittler; Fitzgibbon; Morley; Payten Goals: Fitzgibbon (9/9 conversions) |
| St Helens | Goals: Long (0/1 penalty goal) |
Teams
| Sydney Roosters | St Helens | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthony Minichiello | Fullback | Darren Albert | 1 |
| 2 | Todd Byrne | Wing | Anthony Stewart | 2 |
| 3 | Justin Hodges | Centre | Martin Gleeson | 3 |
| 4 | Chris Flannery | Centre | Paul Newlove | 4 |
| 5 | Shannon Hegarty | Wing | Ade Gardner | 5 |
| 6 | Brad Fittler | Five-eighth (c) | Tommy Martyn | 6 |
| 7 | Craig Wing | Halfback | Sean Long | 7 |
| 8 | Peter Cusack | Front row | Darren Britt | 8 |
| 9 | Michael Crocker | Hooker | Jason Hooper | 9 |
| 10 | Jason Cayless | Front row | John Stankevitch | 10 |
| 11 | Craig Fitzgibbon | Second row | Chris Joynt | 11 |
| 12 | Adrian Morley | Second row | Darren Smith | 12 |
| 13 | Luke Ricketson | Lock | Paul Sculthorpe | 13 |
| Substitutes | ||||
| 14 | Ned Catic | Mick Higham | 14 | |
| 15 | Todd Payten | Tim Jonkers | 15 | |
| 16 | Chad Robinson | Mark Edmondson | UNCONFIRMED | |
| Ricky Stuart | Coach | Ian Millward | ||
Match officials
| Referee | Russell Smith |
| Player of the match | Craig Fitzgibbon (Sydney Roosters) |
Match report
Sydney Roosters, fresh off their 2002 NRL premiership, delivered a ruthless performance to record St Helens' heaviest World Club Challenge defeat. Captain Brad Fittler led from the front and crossed for a try himself, while England-bound enforcer Adrian Morley — soon to join Bradford in a landmark transfer — also scored, foreshadowing the growing NRL-Super League player traffic of the era. Man-of-the-match Craig Fitzgibbon was the dominant figure, scoring a try and landing all nine of his goal attempts for a personal haul of 22 points, an immaculate kicking display that alone outscored the entire Saints team. Todd Byrne and Todd Payten rounded out the scoring. St Helens, missing several key men, never threatened the try line and Sean Long's sole penalty attempt missed. The result marked the first meeting between the two clubs since 1976 and underlined the NRL's competitive edge over Super League heading into the mid-2000s.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 Sydney Roosters' 1st World Club Challenge title and the 11th staging of the fixture since its unofficial 1976 debut.