AMERICAN FOOTBALL: Despite their 23-year-old quarterback Ben Roethlisberger having the worst game of his career and their most significant touchdown pass of the night being hurled by a wide receiver, the Pittsburgh Steelers still emerged 21-10 winners over the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl XL at Ford Field.

In a game that never lived up to its pre-match Extra Large billing - including during the half-time performance by the Rolling Stones - the Steelers became only the third team to win five Super Bowls.

The most dramatic sequence of play came with under nine minutes to go. Having driven his team down the field so impressively that they looked set to turn a 14-10 deficit into a three-point lead, Seattle's quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, unfurled a risky throw that was intercepted almost on the goal-line by Ike Taylor.

The Steelers made the most of it, turning it into the key moment of the game.

Roethlisberger fed Willie Parker, who, running the other, way put the ball in the hands of Antwaan Randle El. With the Seahawks having fallen for the dummy, Randle El floated a 43-yarder into the arms of Hines Ward in the end zone.

For that and another catch that had led to a Roethlisberger touchdown before half-time, Ward was voted most valuable player.

The son of a GI and a mother from Seoul, he is the first Korean-born footballer to garner the award.

"I was so open that I just kept thinking, 'Please, ball get here, huh!' " said Ward, whose also won a Cadillac Escalade and the requisite trip to Disney World.

"It just seemed like it happened in such slow motion, you know? But it was a great play call, at just the right time, something that we had run before and had some success with.

"It was kind of typical. We gave the ball away a few times, but we made big plays. And big plays in big games is what it's all about."

That cameo aside, this was not the most aesthetically pleasing Steelers triumph, but that will hardly trouble residents of Pittsburgh. They have waited over a quarter of a century for an elusive fifth ring, a quest they've described as "one for the thumb".

That phrase seemed apt early on when Roethlisberger, all fingers and thumbs, failed to engineer a single first down in the opening quarter. When Josh Brown converted a 47-yard field goal, the Seahawks led 3-0.

Pittsburgh's proximity to the venue - a couple of hundred rather than 2,000 miles - ensured this was a like a home fixture, but the crowd were rendered mute by the Seahawks' early dominance.

Seattle appeared more relaxed and were far superior, until Roethlisberger threw a 37-yarder to Ward that brought the Steelers to within three feet of a touchdown two minutes before the break. On a night when he would become the youngest quarterback to win a Super Bowl, that pitch and his subsequent dive that barely made it over the line were to be Roethlisberger's most significant contributions.

In the 39 previous deciders, no quarterback has had a worse rating and finished on the winning team.

That touchdown gave them a scarcely deserved interval lead, but, perhaps taking their cue from the Stones' Start Me Up, they got going after the break. On the second play of the second half Parker ran 75 yards for the longest rushing touchdown in Super Bowl history.

Even with an 11-point cushion, the Steelers still looked curiously vulnerable. From a scoring position Roethlisberger threw a sloppy interception to Kelly Herndon, and three plays later Hasselbeck connected with Jeremy Stevens for a touchdown.

Brown converted to bring the Seahawks within four.

Midway through the third quarter, the momentum appeared all theirs until Hasselbeck's throw and Randle El's delightful quarterback imitation gave Pittsburgh's coach Bill Cowher the feeling his 14-year wait for a first title was coming to an end.

To deprive the Seahawks of time in which to concoct an improbable comeback, Cowher put the ball in the hands of Jerome "the Bus" Bettis. In the 13th year of a Hall of Fame career, the Detroit-born running back ran down the clock with seven carries and, as he cradled the Vince Lombardi Trophy afterwards, announced that this would be "the last stop for this Bus" - a romantic ending to a lacklustre evening.

Guardian Service