Match report: St Helens 30 - 22 Huddersfield Giants
Jun 12 2010 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
WITH just over 10 minutes remaining of a pulsating see-saw battle, the Giants’ dream of a first Super League win at St Helens was very much alive.
Having fought their way back to 22-22, coach Nathan Brown’s men looked capable of going on to claim another eye-catching victory after Sunday’s superb 52-6 success at Bradford Bulls.
But with injuries taking their toll in the closing stages, the Giants began to run out of gas and Saints struck to snatch victory from what it looked could have been the jaws of defeat.
It was clearly a disappointing end to the contest that way, but any hopes Huddersfield may have had of starting as rapidly as they had done at Bradford five days earlier were quickly extinguished.
Although hooker Shaun Lunt came desperately close to opening the scoring after seven minutes, Saints soon began to take control.
Good defence held up Francis Meli over the tryline, but within moments there was no stopping Matt Gidley as he plunged over from close range after 10 minutes for Jamie Foster to convert.
And four minutes later the home side added try No2 when Gary Wheeler stole the ball off Brett Hodgson on a one-on-one tackle and raced in at the corner to make it 10-0.
At that stage it wasn’t looking good.
But David Faiumu gave the Giants hope when he stepped over neatly from close range after collecting a short Luke Robinson pass.
Hodgson failed to add the extras and to add to his side’s woes, Saints struck for a third time after Tony Puletua crashed over from close range and Foster landed the conversion to make it 16-4.
Again, the signs looked ominous, particularly when substitute Eorl Crabtree was forced to withdraw with an ankle injury just minutes after taking to the field.
This Giants side, however, is now made of sterner stuff, and in the closing minutes of the half they took complete control to level the scores at 16-16 at the break.
In the 35th minutes Danny Brough’s pass sent Lee Gilmour charging over to score on his first return to the club where he had played the previous six seasons.
Then two minutes before the break Brough’s 40-20 kick put the Giants on the attack and David Fa’alogo drove powerfully to the line before feeding Scott Grix to dive over by the posts.
With Hodgson adding both conversions the game was perfectly poised for the second period.
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