Giants managing director looks back at historic season

Sep 19 2009 by Roy Wright, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE BEST return from a league season in almost half a century will not be wasted.

That is the aim of Huddersfield Giants as they head into tonight’s engage Super League qualifying play-off at St Helens (6.00).

The Giants finished the regular season in third place – their highest ever Super League finish and their best in the top flight in 47 years.

It is a significant improvement on the final 10th place of the previous season and with head coach Nathan Brown’s troops having the best defensive record in the competition, conceding only 416 points – which is the second best in the last 10 years of Super League – and with the third best attack, scoring 690 points, they have reason to be in high spirits.

Giants managing director Richard Thewlis is delighted with the season to date and said: “There is no doubt that statistically on virtually every count, this has been our best year in living memory.

“We have a team full of internationals who have been brought together on the field by Nathan and his staff in splendid style and who deliver entertaining rugby league.

“I believe there is still more to come from this team and, like the supporters, I am looking forward to an exciting play-off series.”

The highlight, and a significant financial boost, was the trip to the Carnegie Challenge Cup final.

The Giants defeated three Super League teams on the way to Wembley and, although they lost out to Warrington on the big day, Thewlis felt the second trip to the capital in four years was significant.

“Wembley is a very special place, especially for rugby league,” he said.

“From our semi-final win over St Helens we said consistently that we had to build in every area of the club on the back of Wembley.

“The Challenge Cup performances of recent years, together with the media exposure that brings, has elevated the club to new heights.

“People want to be associated with success and we are aiming to consistently deliver that, with the Challenge Cup simply fast-tracking us forward.

“It was pleasing that this year we clearly had significantly more support on the day than we did in our last final appearance at Twickenham in 2006, and we estimated around 18,000 to 20,000 were our fans.

“The key is to get them to the Galpharm week in, week out, and to do simple things like wear our shirts around the town and demonstrate to everyone that the claret and gold army is visibly growing at all our games.”

An increase in attendances with an average of 7,909 for Super League XIV games at the Galpharm means the Giants were one of only three clubs in the competition to record a rise and they continued the year-on-year home attendance progress since 2005.

This figure was even more significant taking into account the recession and the fact that attendance from away fans at the Galpharm was down by 25%.