Nathan Brown column: Cup atmosphere is so special

Jun 4 2009 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

How much did you enjoy the Challenge Cup game against Castleford?

It was obviously an exciting finish and, at the end of the day, we achieved what we wanted to do – to win through to the next round.

But there were obviously moments in the game when we know we could, and should, have done a lot better. There were clearly times when we let ourselves down by our poor execution, which is something we clearly need to rectify.

Yet having said that, Castleford are playing well. Defensively they’ve improved and they have some good young attacking players.

That meant we had to do some good stuff to win, because they are playing well.

I’m sure both coaches will have been happy with the effort, but both know there was a lot of stuff they could have done much better.

There was no doubt both teams gave everything they had for their club and their fans, and I’m so pleased for everyone we won the game and were in the happy camp at the end.

Because you were ‘bombing’ so many chances, did you ever feel you weren’t going to do it?

We did ‘bomb’ a number of chances, there’s no question about that, and those we didn’t ‘bomb’ they scrambled well to deny us.

There were times when a couple of people in key positions were taking the wrong options and you did wonder if we were ever going to get over the line.

But, fortunately, Robbo (Luke Robinson) and Kev (Brown) were able to come up with good touches when it mattered most to win us the game.

The key for us now is to learn from the experiences of last weekend and make sure that when we next play such a high-pressure game we don’t come up short in the key areas once again. If we find ourselves in a similar situation again we have to make sure we execute far better.

Yet even though you were disappointed with the lack of execution, you must have been delighted with the character the players showed?

Yes, you couldn’t fault the effort at all. Everyone tried very hard.

There were times when we were 14-6 down and then 14-12 down that Castleford created opportunities, and the game would have gone had they taken them.

But on each occasion we scrambled back and found a way to keep them out. That was crucial.