Match report: Huddersfield Giants 4 - 60 Warrington Wolves

May 10 2010 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

OUT-CLASSED, out-muscled, out-thought, out-enthused – and quite rightly out of the Challenge Cup after this woeful excuse for a performance.

Embarrassing Huddersfield’s dreams of returning to Wembley were ripped completely apart by a Warrington side who, on this form, look a good bet to retain the trophy they collected at the expense of the Giants in last season’s final.

Not since a 78-18 Super League defeat at Bradford Bulls in June, 2001 have Huddersfield conceded over 60 points in a game.

Those dark days appeared as if they were now well behind a Giants side that has gone from strength to strength since then.

But they returned with a vengeance as former Huddersfield coach Tony Smith’s outstanding team ran in 12 tries, almost at will, as their hosts simply rolled over and died.

The key against a side as clinical as Warrington is to attempt to starve them of possession as much as possible. Without the ball, the Wolves have no bite.

Instead, the Giants kept on coming up with error after error and, on the back of that, there was only going to be one incredibly painful outcome.

In the final analysis, the Giants got exactly what they deserved.

Already, the post mortem has got under way as to what went wrong, because this just wasn’t the sort of Huddersfield Giants display we’ve all come to love and respect.

Everything that has been at the heart of their success – particularly that bulldog character and never-say-die attitude – was just nowhere to be seen.

A clearly shell-shocked Nathan Brown may have been trying to avoid making excuses.

But questions are being raised across the board over how much Brett Hodgson’s end-of-season exit to Warrington and the speculation over Brown’s own future is affecting the squad as a whole. Judging by this, it could be a problem.

It’s true that players come and go all the time, and speculation over the future of individuals is part of the sport’s fabric.

Yet there has to be more than simply being a ‘bad day at the office’ for a capitulation of this magnitude.

Hopefully, this particular theory is as unconvincing as the Giants’ Cup performance itself, and all will be rosy in the garden come 4.40 on Sunday after the home game against Super League leaders Wigan.

But whatever the reasons for this shocking Cup exit, it’s clear Brown and his coaching staff have a great deal of work ahead of them to lift them for the visit of the resurgent cherry and whites.

So much of what the Giants did against the Wolves went horribly wrong.

The opening exchanges did offer some promise, with Lee Briers knocking-on with the first play, and Leroy Cudjoe almost squeezing in at the corner before two minutes had been played.