Super show as Hornets stung

Mar 18 2002 By Chris Roberts, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

His charged was halted by Casey Mayberry, but on the next play with the Rochdale defence at full stretch, McNamara fed Roberts to stroll over.

Five minutes later the rampant Giants were over again as Reilly and Crabtree combined to give Gene a clear run to the line.

Thorman again failed with the conversion and was forced to withdraw as a precautionary measure eight minutes later with a shoulder injury.

By that stage, Thorman had already done more than enough to put his side firmly in the driving seat. A good day's work had been achieved in just 23 minutes!

Luckily, his departure caused little disruption to the side, with Paul March immediately slotting effectively into the scrum half role.

In fact, within two minutes of his arrival he had made a massive contribution, pouncing on full-back Paul Owen's fumble of a towering McNamara kick to score under the posts.

McNamara followed up a 19th-minute penalty with the first of six successful conversions and the Giants appeared to be back on track.

Rochdale's sole try in the 28th minute and the sin-binning of Huddersfield-born duo Turner and David Larder meant the optimism was shortlived.

But a minute before the break, Gene astonishingly broke through tackle after tackle to set up Dave Atkins for a deserved score to make it 32-4 at the break.

And Huddersfield's dominance continued after the break, with four more tries added.