And their tally of just nine tries could rule them out of going through to the Amlin Challenge Cup quarters to boot.

With the sides feeling each other out in the opening quarter, home outside-half Ruaridh Jackson edged the Warriors ahead with penalty goals in the first and 11^th minutes, Steve Myler on target for the Saints soon after to get them off the mark.

Wing Jamie Elliott had his effort to open the try scoring ruled out by the TMO and the Warriors briefly lost influential lock Al Kellock for some running repairs before the try the game was crying out for came in the 30^th minute.

Inside centre Dom Waldouck bulldozed his way through to cross the home line and Myler added the conversion to put the 2000 Heineken Cup Champions in front for the first time.

Scott Wight, who had come on for Jackson, was off target with a penalty chance to enable the Saints, who were beginning to dominate and were 24-15 winners in Round 1, to go into the break with a narrow four-point advantage.

But it was the Warriors who struck first in the second half as flanker Josh Strauss breached the Saints defence, with Wight adding the conversion to put them back in front at 13-10 - albeit for just 12 minutes.

That was how long it took for the Saints to see the lead change hands for the fourth time, with George Pisi getting their second of a ding-dong battle that simply went on and on as scrum-half Niko Matawalu went over for Saints to slip behind yet again.

But after 72 minutes it was back to where they had started at all square as Ryan Lamb missed the conversion of Ben Foden's try to leave it on a knife edge at 20-20.

It was left to midfield replacement Horne to finally end the Saints hopes of any further interest in this season's tournament in the 80^th minute with a fine try he converted himself.