Beaten St Helens boss Keiron Cunningham has once again heaped praise on the Giants after they added to the woes of the men from Langtree Park.
Huddersfield leapfrogged Saints into third in the Super 8s table with their 28-22 triumph at the home of the reigning champions.
That made it four straight defeats for Cunningham’s men – their opening three Super 8s fixtures to the Giants, Hull and Catalans and Challenge Cup semi-final loss to Leeds – but the legendary hooker felt his side’s latest loss owed as much to the performance of the opposition as the way his own side played.
“Huddersfield are a great side, which has been the case for a while now,” admitted Cunningham.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for them as a club. My good mate Paul Anderson (they were former Saints teammates) is doing a fantastic job there. They’re well-organised and have great players all across the park, so they’re always going to be a threat.
“This latest game was a typical Saints-Huddersfield match which went down to the wire. It was a case of them taking their chances better than we did.
“It was a hell of a lot better than the Hull game. There were some really good efforts out there. We played a little bit anxious because we’ve lost a few games at an important time but I’m happy with the response.
“Unfortunately, against a side as good as Huddersfield, we obviously needed to be even better.”
And Cunningham has urged the critics not to write off his side, despite tough fixtures on the horizon against Wigan, Leeds and Warrington.
“The season is a long way from being over. We’ve got to make the top four and we’ll have a crack at it,” added the former Great Britain hooker.
“It’s a result-based industry and we need to pick some points up but I thought the response was pretty good and we’ve got a couple of weeks to build on that, which is exactly what we’ll do.”
