Nathan Brown column: Challenge Cup latest
Aug 13 2009 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner
Rugby League writer Chris Roberts puts the questions to Giants boss Nathan Brown.
How much did you enjoy Sunday?
Obviously the end result was exciting for everyone at the club, whether they be players, strappers, medical staff, partners or fans.
It goes without saying that heading to Wembley for the first time in 50 years is a big thrill for everyone.
And I hope it proves a historic result in terms of what it can do for this club.
When I spoke to Ken Davy when I first came here, he told me it wasn’t that long ago the club had crowds of around 500.
Since then, it’s just grown and grown and grown, and I’ve no doubt a trip to Wembley at the end of the month will play a very important part in helping the club make further progress.
I’d be delighted about that in so many ways, especially for our chairman, Ken Davy, and his wife Jennifer, who have done so much to bring the good times back to this famous club.
You talk about how far this club has progressed. How far do you believe this team has progressed since you arrived?
I said straight after Sunday’s game that 10 weeks ago we wouldn’t have won this tie.
Everyone has continued to work extremely hard since then and we’ve now turned into a pretty good team, and the players deserve a tremendous amount of credit for that.
To be honest, when I first came here I didn’t know exactly what we could achieve.
(Assistant coach) Paul Anderson told me I would be working with a very hard-working bunch of players, and I knew that would be very important in helping the squad improve. Without hard work it’s almost impossible to improve.
But by how much the players would improve was the unknown factor.
Fortunately, everyone has shown an improvement as the season has progressed, and that’s been the key to our success.
So what was the key to success against Saints?
It had to be our ability to stop them from scoring.
We gave them plenty of shots at us, particularly in the first half when we held them up twice over the line and then had to work so hard to force Lee Gilmour into that double movement.
It’s no great secret that our defence has been solid this season, and it certainly needed to be at its best last weekend to repel what is a very decent attacking side.
That effort to deny Gilmour on the stroke of half time proved to be a vital moment in the game, because our players then executed a great play at the start of the second half to put us in a great position.
And it was one of those moments when you know it might just be your day.
When Kev Brown kicked to the corner from our scrum, the ball sat up perfectly for Leroy Cudjoe and not so well for them. On another day, it could have been a totally different story.
As the game entered the final 10 minutes, you were awarded three penalties in kickable positions. Were you tempted to go for the two points?
At that time we were up by eight points, so going up to 10 wouldn’t have made that much difference.
Fortunately, it proved the right call.
We obviously then came up with our final try, thanks to the vision of Brett Hodgson and Stephen Wild’s finish, and with a 14-point lead at that stage, the game was dead and buried.
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