DEJECTED Giants chief Nathan Brown said his side’s 22-18 Challenge Cup quarter-final defeat at Castleford was ‘heartbreaking’.
Huddersfield suffered their fifth away defeat on the trot as their poor form continued.
But Brown made it clear this defeat has hit the Giants as hard as any, with a semi-final spot and potential trip to Wembley having been lost.
“It’s heartbreaking because we just didn’t give ourselves our best chance, that’s what’s disappointing about it,” said the Australian, who also lost centre Joe Wardle early in the contest with a hamstring injury.
“We just can’t build any field position or pressure.
“The start of the second half probably summed up where we are at the moment.
“We scored a try and Cas were there for us to try to take and then we dropped the ball in the next set. We’re not putting enough pressure on the opposition to make them wilt enough and they need to do a little better.
“But what also makes this defeat so hard to take is that we have lost the chance to play in another major final.
“You don’t get too many chances to do that in the game, but we had a taste of it in 2009 and we wanted another.
“The fact we won’t be doing that again this year is not a good thought right now.”
Brown refused to apportion any main blame to Danny Brough, who failed to land three touchline conversions, while opposite number Kirk Dixon missed just once.
“Broughy hasn’t kicked well, but we could have given our halves a much better chance with some better field position.
“We could look at all sorts of different things. At the end of the day, we could have given ourselves a better shot.
“I can’t fault people’s effort, we just need to be a little bit more conscious of how you build pressure and what the actual building of pressure does for you.”
