Huddersfield Giants 18 - 12 Crusaders

Sep 13 2010 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

THE Giants of 2010 have made history!

After failing to win a Super League play-off on three previous attempts, Huddersfield finally broke their duck – and in the most dramatic of circumstances.

Only a thrilling Leroy Cudjoe 50 metre try with two minutes remaining guaranteed Nathan Brown’s men a place in the preliminary semi-final following a truly titanic tussle against a brave Crusaders side.

The Welsh were underdogs ahead of kick-off, but battled for their lives before falling to Cudjoe’s killer strike late on that produced the 18-12 scoreline.

Clearly, the Giants will have to play a lot, lot better if they are to move to within one game of a trip to Old Trafford and the Super League Grand Final on October 2.

But a lot of the credit for such a scrappy Huddersfield display has to go to the Crusaders, who played to their strengths and stifled their hosts at every opportunity.

In previous seasons – including last year’s play-off home defeat to Catalans Dragons – the Giants would have failed to cope under such circumstances and fallen meekly.

But they are now made of far sterner stuff, showing the strength of character to battle back from adversity and make victory theirs.

And there was no question there were periods of adversity against a Crusaders side who emerged from their first play-off outing with an incredible amount of credit.

Their 8-0 interval advantage was thoroughly deserved – it was clear from whistle one they knew they had nothing to lose – and, to be honest, if they had hung on to claim the win there would have been no real cause for complaint.

Yet having said that, the below-par Giants restricted their visitors to just one solitary 36th-minute intercept try and one conversion and three penalties by Clinton Schifcofske.

That clearly underlined the home side’s big defensive effort, which needed to be at his best due to the amount of careless errors Huddersfield kept on making.

Uncharacteristic mistakes were being made almost right from the start as the Wrexham-based side had by far the better of the opening exchanges.

Such was their early dominance that it was 17 minutes before the Giants had an attack in the Crusaders’ 20, with the excellent Luke Robinson held up over the line and David Fa’alogo somehow stopped from crashing over from close range.

A neat Danny Brough grubber kick also forced the first of Crusaders’ four drop-outs during that spell.

But that did prove to be a relatively brief interlude and, even though the visitors’ try was a gift, it wasn’t entirely unexpected given the nature of what had gone on before.

With the home side desperately looking to find a precious lead just before half-time, Brough threw out a speculative pass on halfway and Rhys Hanbury gladly stepped in to race away for the 36th-minute opener.

Three minutes later Schifcofske landed his first penalty and the Crusaders were in pole position.

It was vital, therefore, the Giants started the second half strongly and, thanks to Robinson, that’s exactly what had happened.

Within five minutes of the restart, the livewire half-back collected from acting half-back 40 metres out, stepped on the gas and sold several dummies on a marvellous charge to the line

Hodgson marked his final Giants home game by adding the extras and his side was up-and-running.