Huddersfield Giants captain Brett Hodgson's column: Physicality is key

Sep 3 2010 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

T only seems like yesterday that we were last in Perpignan to face Catalans Dragons.

But it’s amazing to think it was, in fact, the first game of last season and I was preparing to make my debut for the Giants. It just goes to show how time really does fly when you’re having fun!

Fortunately, everything went according to plan on that first night in February, and we produced a rock-solid victory to get our season up and running.

It’s always important to get that first victory under your belt, and we were all delighted with the way things went.

I also know how delighted everyone will feel if we produce a repeat this weekend.

Victory will obviously guarantee us a fifth-place finish, which is another fantastic achievement when you consider how tough Super League is.

But we know we can’t take Catalans, and fifth place, for granted.

Even though we did win so well in the South of France last season, it was a very physical contest, and we already know the Dragons won’t be taking any prisoners.

The key, therefore, is to make sure we face them head-on from start to finish, and with the players we have in our pack I can’t see that being a problem at all, can you?

Our big fellas down the middle really do relish a very physical battle, and that’s one thing we can guarantee tomorrow night.

It’s good to know we’ll have Darrell Griffin back after serving his one-match ban, even though the forwards did fair well without him in our win at home to Salford last time out.

That’s largely because of the way fellow props Andy Raleigh and Larne Patrick returned to action after injury lay-offs.

It was Andy’s first game after a two-month absence with a neck injury, while I think we all expected Larne to be sidelined for a similar length of time.

Larne did, of course, suffer what looked a very nasty head injury in the game against Wakefield just a month ago. We all thought he suffered a broken jaw and fractured cheekbone at the very least.

So to see him trot back onto the field against Salford just a couple of weeks later was nothing short of a miracle.