Warrington Wolves have once again inflicted misery on the Huddersfield Giants.
Over a tortuous past three seasons, Huddersfield have found it impossible to get the better of former coach Tony Smith and his men.
In that time they’ve inflicted heavy defeats on the Giants in the regular rounds of Super League, the play-offs and also in the Challenge Cup.
And despite having beaten leaders Wigan at home and won at champions Leeds and St Helens in 2013, coach Paul Anderson’s men have now suffered two convincing defeats to the Wolves this season.
They lost 28-2 in the Warrington blizzards on march 22, and then conceded the double after falling to this 34-12 defeat at the John Smith’s Stadium.
In truth, the margin of the win summed up the gap between the two teams on the day, with Warrington boss Smith acknowledging it’s the best his side has played all season.
On the other hand, the Giants were far from being anywhere near their best.
As a result, this sort of scoreline was, unfortunately, inevitable.
And it also does little for the Giants’ quest at the top of the table.
Their fourth defeat of the season means the gap between themselves in second and Warrington in third is down to a solitary point, with leaders Wigan now three points clear.
But with Leeds having two games in hand, they could also move three clear of the Giants.
Much can obviously change between now and the end of the season – and that change has to include a big improvement in form if they are to avoid losses similar to that suffered by the likes of Warrington towards the business end of the season.
Having said that, the Giants couldn’t have got off to a better start in this latest attempt to get the better of what has to be their main Super League bogey team, taking the lead on their first attack after four minutes.
A Brough 40-20 made it possible, with the home side taking full advantage of the subsequent attacking scrum for Shaun Lunt and Luke Robinson to combine to send Jermaine McGillvary over in the corner.
Brough landed an excellent touchline conversion, and the Giants were continuing from where they left off at Catalan Dragons eight days earlier.
Unfortunately, however, that was about as good it got for Huddersfield in the opening half as they simply gifted their visitors a route back into the contest.
A Jason Chan fumble inside his own 20 gained the Wolves valuable position in attacking territory and Micky Higham took full advantage to plunge over for former Giants captain Brett Hodgson to add the extras and level the scores after seven minutes.
Then, 10 minutes later, Scott Grix spilt the ball bringing the ball back from inside his own in-goal area in heavy traffic and Trent Waterhouse picked up the pieces to show great strength and stretch over.
Although Hodgson failed to convert, he made no mistake six minutes later after his side’s third try.
This time the Giants were guilty of conceding two quickfire penalties close to their own tryline and Warrington needed little invitation to present Waterhouse with his second.
At 16-6, the game was already slipping through Huddersfield's grasp.
And that was reinforced just four painful minutes later when Grix failed to deal with Stefan Ratchford’s grubber and the kicker gleefully added to the full-back’s increasing pain by snatching possession and touching down.
At that stage, the Giants’ cause was further hampered with a number of 50-50 refereeing calls going against them, and that boiled over on the stroke of half-time when Brough was sent to the sin-bin for dissent. The Huddersfield skipper was far from impressed when the match officials failed to notice what he claimed had been an elbow to his neck and made his feelings known!
Hodgson was unable to land the subsequent penalty, but at 22-6 down at half-time the Giants had it all to do.
Although they survived the opening 10 minutes of the second half when they were down to 12 men, the Wolves struck for a fifth time as soon as their hosts were back to a full compliment.
Again it came after Giants conceded a penalty, with Wolves making the opening for Hodgson to come into the line and finish off to make it 28-6.
But moments later came a very special moment as Kruise Leeming scored within minutes of taking to a Super League field for the first time.
Warrington winger Chris Riley spilt the ball on his own 20 after retrieving a Brough kick downfield and Robinson immediately released the 17-year-old hooker to race over for Brough to convert.
That made it 28-12 after 54 minutes, and there was the slightest glimmer of hope.
But when Ryan Atkins finished off a good sweeping move to cross for his side’s sixth try with 13 minutes remaining, it was game well and truly over.
