Giants coach Nathan Brown: Focus on personnel

Aug 20 2009 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WAS the performance on Sunday against Bradford the one you were fearing after the heroics against St Helens the week before?

Yes, most definitely.

We tried to guard against the attitude side of the game and the effort, but we always knew it would be difficult after what had gone on the week before.

To be honest, almost straight after the semi-final I spoke to Daniel Anderson (Saints’ former Challenge Cup winning coach) and he warned me this could happen. He said he’s experienced it first hand in the past.

But trying to find the solution is easier said than done, and we were all obviously very disappointed with what we saw in the opening half the other night.

There were people looking for the side door rather than looking to put themselves in a position to carry the ball, make a tackle or work hard off the ball.

Those were qualities that helped us get to third in Super League and got us to Wembley.

But I don’t think it would be right to come down too hard on the players, because over the past two months they have put in so much effort and so many good performances to get us into this position, and we know that in the next few weeks and months we’ve got bigger fish to fry.

We’re already virtually guaranteed a top-four finish in Super League and, sub-consciously, that’s something that was probably at the back of the players’ minds on Sunday, as well as the fact they’ve got a Challenge Cup final at Wembley just around the corner. It’ll be a different story then!

But while you were obviously disappointed by your own team’s overall performance, how much credit do Bradford deserve for the way they played?

They did play some pretty good footy, there’s no question about that.

The reality is that if you win the game you’ve obviously got to contribute well, and that’s what Bradford did. They put on some nice plays and scored some good tries.

Although they’ve had a difficult season, they have a lot of quality players in their side and they took full advantage for our lack of effort on the night.

At the same time, were there any positives you could take from the contest?

Our second-half performance was a lot better than the first.

At half-time, we asked for a positive response from the players, and that’s exactly what we got.

Unfortunately, you just can’t afford to give a side a lead like we did in the first half (24-6). That margin proved just a bit too big.

But it was noticeable how things started to fall into place after the break when we put in the required effort. For instance, we started to see some of the calls going our way.