Angry coach Paul Anderson has warned his players they can forget about lifting the League Leaders Shield if there’s any repeat of the ‘disgraceful’ second-half showing against Castleford in their remaining five Super League XVIII games.
Huddersfield returned to the top of the table after a five-month absence with their 48-32 home triumph over the Tigers, though Anderson’s men will lose top spot if previous leaders Wigan Warriors win at St Helens tonight.
And after watching his side throw away a 36-4 interval advantage and be forced to hang on, the John Smith’s Stadium chief knows if his players don’t smarten up their act, their bid for Super League title glory will end in failure.
“One of the few positives from this game was that we returned to the top of the table,” said Anderson.
“But if we keep on playing like that, we’d end up at the bottom!
“We showed some real intent in the first half and wanted to put down a marker. We wanted a positive response after our Cup defeat at Warrington, and that’s what we did up until half-time.
“But the second half was disgraceful. I’d said at half-time we have to have the mentality that the game is 0-0, and if that had been the case I’d have been happy. Instead, we kept trying to score off every set and too many players thought they were working hard when they weren’t.”
