Nathan Brown column: We have to move on

Sep 3 2009 by Chris Roberts, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Much has been written and said about your decision to rest players at St Helens the week before the final and how that didn’t help your cause in the game. Is that a fair shout?

When you lose, everyone is always looking for excuses, and it’s been no different with us after the defeat.

But when St Helens rested players the week before their recent Challenge Cup finals and they went on to win, no-one obviously felt it was the wrong thing to do.

And unless you’re actually at the club preparing for a final it’s difficult to give an accurate assessment of whether it’s right to rest players or not.

All I know is that all the players who were rested were carrying one knock or another and a week off wouldn’t have done them any harm.

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t say that’s what hurt on Saturday, far from it.

If you had to pick your three top Giants’ performers on the day, who would they be?

I thought Shaun Lunt played well, along with David Faiumu and Brett Hodgson. They were the ones for me.

And now you’ve sampled a Wembley Challenge Cup final, what do you think about the ‘occasion’?

For myself as an Australian, when the Challenge Cup got under way I just saw it as a competition and my only thought as a coach was to try and prepare the team as best you can.

But after we’d beaten St Helens in the semi-final I began to start to appreciate why it means so much, particularly with the final being at Wembley.

This place holds a very special place in the hearts of all English people, whatever sport they’re involved in.

As soon as we’d reached the final, Lee Clark and Terry McDermott (from Town) came to see me and said how lucky I was to be able to be in charge of a team that would be playing at Wembley. It was immediately clear to me how special they thought it was.

And that sort of sentiment was being echoed throughout the build-up to the day itself.

Everyone was really excited in the build-up to the game, and that was rammed home when we went for our Wembley walk-about the day before the final.

Finally, when it came to your final team selection, how tough was it to give the nod to Martin Aspinwall ahead of Andy Raleigh and Simon Finnigan for that vacant second-row substitute spot?

It was incredibly tough.

In the case of Andy, he’s produced some very good games for us this season on the back of two long-term injuries.

But he arrived at Wembley with one game in the last 10 behind him, and that’s clearly not a great build-up to such a big final.

Finny can also count himself unlucky, because his recent performances have been some of his best of the year.

But we felt Aspy was the man who could do the best job for us.

He’s only played in the back row for five weeks, but his form has been getting better and better, and making the final 17 was his reward.

You were delighted with the support you received at Wembley. You must have been just as delighted with the number of fans who turned out in Huddersfield on Monday for the civic reception?

I thought the support at Wembley was sensational, just as it has been for us all year.

We really can’t thank them enough for that.

And what can we say about the turn-out in Huddersfield on Monday!

After losing on Saturday, I don’t think any of us knew exactly what to expect when we got back.

They’d all enjoyed their day at Wembley, but we weren’t able to provide the icing on the cake by bringing the trophy back with us.

But I think it’s fair to say we were all overwhelmed by the response, and it certainly help to erase some of the negative memories of Saturday.

Again, we can’t thank you enough for coming out and supporting us in such good numbers. We really do appreciate it.