Huddersfield captain Danny Brough produced a dazzling display as the Giants stunned Leeds 32-8, while St Helens won 22-10 at Warrington.
Brough, omitted from the national squad in the week, demonstrated his class to England and Leeds captain Kevin Sinfield by scoring one try and creating four more to keep the Giants top of the table.
While the Rhinos were a pale shadow of the team that pushed Melbourne so close on the same ground a fortnight earlier, Huddersfield were transformed from a side labelled "embarrassing" by coach Paul Anderson following a 43-18 home defeat by Bradford last Sunday.
Aaron Murphy weighed in with two tries while Joe Wardle, Scott Grix and Eorl Crabtree also crossed for the visitors. Leeds' only try came from Paul McShane.
St Helens finally kickstarted their campaign with a convincing 22-10 win over their old whipping boys Warrington at the Halliwell Jones Stadium.
Nathan Brown has endured a frustrating time since taking charge at Saints but his new side clicked into gear as early tries from Jordan Turner, Lance Hohaia and Francis Meli put them in charge.
Below-par Warrington eventually replied through Chris Bridge but their notoriously poor record against Saints continued to haunt them as James Roby condemned them to a second successive defeat.
Bridge claimed a second try on the breakaway in the dying moments but Saints, who had won 37 of the previous 44 Super League encounters between the clubs, held on.
Pat Richards marked his 200th appearance for Wigan with a personal haul of 18 points as they ran in seven tries to see off the Catalan Dragons 38-0 at the DW Stadium.
Richards crossed twice and kicked five goals in this Super League contest - the first try was his 150th four-pointer for the Warriors.
Wigan's other tries were scored by Blake Green, Chris Tuson, Jack Hughes, Sam Tomkins and Greg Burke.
Joe Arundel and Tom Lineham scored hat-tricks as Hull returned to winning way with a crushing 52-0 victory over Castleford in a match which descended into chaos.
Australian stand-off Daniel Holdsworth marked his return from injury with an excellent display at the KC Stadium, having missed two matches due to concussion, and in the first half he produced two huge bombs to create tries for Richard Horne and Lineham.
Lineham also grabbed an interception try inside the opening 40 minutes, and Arundel benefited from some good fortune to cross for his first score, with Danny Tickle booting three goals.
There was little variation on the theme in the second half as Hull added tries through Arundel and Lineham's third, before a 26-man brawl broke out, leading to red cards for Tickle and Weller Hauraki and a pair of yellow cards, making it an 11-a-side contest.
Arundel grabbed his hat-trick try, with Houghton and Josh Bowden also crossing under the posts to complete the nine-try demolition and give Hull their first clean sheet at the KC.
Widnes had Gareth Hock sent off but his side salvaged a 22-22 draw after a magnificent backs-to-the-wall effort against Bradford.
The forward, on loan from Wigan, was red-carded on the half hour by referee Robert Hicks for dissent after Matt Diskin bagged the Bulls third touchdown to stretch their advantage to 16-4, following scores from Elliott Whitehead and Brett Kearney inside the opening five minutes.
However, the Vikings stunned Bradford by grabbing three tries without reply when they were down to 12 men through Rhys Hanbury, Patrick Ah Van and Lloyd White before an Ah Van penalty five minutes from time earned them a deserved draw.
