The Giants chief answers the questions put by Examiner RL writer Chris Roberts.

After such a fantastic win over St Helens, do you feel you can put your bad spell behind you?

We’d certainly like to think so.

But we all know the key is how we back-up after this game, that’s when we can start to think about if things are falling back into place.

Having said that, the performance against St Helens was our best for quite a while.

I thought our first 60-65 minutes against them was really good and, in the first 40 minutes in particular, the game was just what you’d expect when two quality sides play each other.

It was end-to-end with not much stoppage and the game was pretty quick.

And despite St Helens having their well-documented injury problems, we came into the game knowing it was going to be hard.

When you look at the side Saints fielded against us, they still had 11 internationals in their squad, the problem for them is obviously that the same position (half-back) keeps on getting hurt.

But as far as their outside backs and forwards go, they were still very strong, and it wasn’t that great a surprise they pushed us for such a long period in the game.

At the same time, we also know that when we next meet, St Helens will have different halves and will be even tougher to beat, and that’s another reason why this isn’t the time to be getting too carried away.

How disappointed were you with that spell towards the end of the game, and when it was won, when you conceded two relatively ‘soft’ tries?

There’s no doubt we did have a 10-minute period when we made a couple of errors and we were punished for that.

They were moments that underlined that our response and goal line defence is still not where we want to be if we are to keep on improving.

But, defensively, we did really well in the first half, the problem during that time was that our execution could have been a lot better. We scored two tries, but failed to take three other genuine chances that came our way.

As a result, this kept St Helens well in the game and they got off to a good start at the start of the second half.

Fortunately, we knuckled down tremendously well after they cut our lead to 12-6 and we were rewarded for our efforts.

How proud were you with the fact 16 of the 17 Giants players in action against Saints were English.

It’s very good for the club going forward.

They say the salary cap in Australia is going up to seven million, so the clubs over here certainly won’t be bringing many people from over there in another 18 months.

That obviously means the clubs with a lot more English players will be far better off than the clubs who are reliant on dodgy passports and all that sort of stuff.

Clearly the Giants have just shown we’re in a strong position in this respect.

And, from a personal note, I’d like to add how delighted I was that we beat St Helens in Super League.

Although we had a memorable win over them in the Challenge Cup, this is the first time we’ve beaten Saints in the League since I’ve been here. That’s something that also pleases me.

Although you ‘bombed’ some chances against Saints, there were some magical tries, weren’t there?

Yes, we did score some really good tries, which were great to see.

But these came off the back of some committed running and defence, and the way in which everyone was prepared to work hard for each other. That has always been the key to our success.