YOU have to hand it to Saints. Just when the rest of Super League feels confident they know what to expect from Ian Millward's flamboyant attacking outfit, up pops the cheeky Aussie with another new page from his rapidly expanding playbook.

The union-style short kick-off is nothing new to Super League, with many teams attempting to win possession back straight from the restart to give themselves hope of a late comeback.

But never in my memory has it been used as early or as spectacularly as Saints' Paul Sculthorpe did at Wakefield last weekend.

The Great Britain ace punted the ball high for Darren Albert to collect and send Tim Jonkers racing to the line for Super League's fastest ever try in just 14 seconds.

The former Super League, Challenge Cup and World Club champions were not always so switched on from the kick-off.

Around seven years ago they conceded a famously embarrasing score to Wigan's Henry Paul, who raced 50 metres to collect an Andy Farrell drop out and stroll home unopposed, leaving two red-faced Saints defenders clutching thin air.

But now the Knowsley Roaders are the masters of spontaneity and it came as no surprise when Millward, the most inventive and confident coach to grace the British game for years, said afterwards that it was a ploy well-rehearsed in training.

"That was something we had practised during the week. When we won the toss, we thought we would give it a go," he said in the cavalier style which encompasses everything St Helens.

There's a long-standing theory that coaches and managers do not pick their clubs, their clubs pick them. And Millward is a perfect example of the horse suiting the course.

Previous supremo Ellery Hanley managed to guide Saints to the Super League crown in 1999 but his defence-orientated style was suffocating their usual off-the-cuff antics.

Millward's arrival was like a breath of fresh air as the likes of Sean Long, Tommy Martyn and Keiron Cunningham were given free roles, much to the annoyance of their Super League rivals, and unprecedented success soon followed.

Most recently Millward incensed the purists by resting a string of 'injured' first team stars for the clash with London, suspiciously just a week before the Challenge Cup final.

But the fact is that he broke no rules and simply chose what he saw as the best possible option for his team.

When Sheffield United recently had their clash with West Brom abandoned at 3-1 down for having too many players sent off or injured, you can bet Millward was furiously thumbing through his RL rulebook to see if that was another option open to him.

Love him or hate him, the former Leigh boss has the sharpest tactical brain in Super League and, while Saints' lack of funds has made it near impossible to dominate in the manner which their arch-rivals Wigan did a decade ago, with Millward at the helm they will always be a major force come the play-offs.