IT’S been a challenging start to the season for the Giants in the Valvoline Cup.

After a 44-18 opening-day triumph at Widnes Vikings, there have been heavy defeats to Warrington Wolves (56-6), London Broncos (40-12), St Helens (68-0) and Wakefield Trinity Wildcats (46-12).

The cause for the club’s Under 20s hasn’t been helped by the long list of injuries to senior members of the Super League squad, with the obvious knock-on effect for coach Jamahl Lolesi in his bid to pick a competitive team on a regular basis.

As a result, a fair number of players from the Giants Under 18s Academy set-up have already seen action at a more senior level.

In the short term, that’s clearly taken its toll, but in the long term it could reap its reward, with the youngsters beginning to find their feet at a higher standard.

And that was evident with the Giants’ latest performance at home to Castleford Tigers at the weekend.

While the hosts included six 17-year-olds, their visitors boasted just two.

But at the end of a see-saw encounter, the Tigers scraped home 36-28 in a contest which could have gone either way.

Had the Giants eventually triumphed, Castleford – who were boasted by the likes of experienced Super League players Steve Nash and Jordan Thompson – could have had no real complaints.

The longer the contest progressed, the more of a threat Huddersfield became, with Jamie Cording eventually taking the game by the scruff of the neck.

During the off-season, the young Super League squad man has been working harder than ever to make a telling impact at the highest level.

Unfortunately, that meant he missed the opening weeks of the competitive campaign preparing for the challenges ahead.

But on this showing, those efforts are already starting to reap some reward.

Cording, however, wasn’t the only young Giant to make a positive impression against the far more experienced Tigers.

Jonny Molloy is now starting to get back to the form that earned him a Super League appearance at the beginning of last season, with all the signs suggesting the major shoulder surgery he was forced to undergo in the middle of the year proved a 100% success.

And 17-year-old prop Josh Johnson came off the bench to spark up his side at a time in the encounter when Castleford threatened to rattle up a cricket score.

Another of the 17-year-olds, Joel Farrell – the son of former Leeds and Great Britain back-rower Anthony – was also very much to the fore, really coming into his own when he switched from centre to hooker midway through the contest.

At the end of the day, however, the Giants paid the price for making the poorest of starts to both halves.

After 10 uncomfortable opening minutes, the home side were 18-0 down after conceding soft tries to Sam Orange, Richard Lepori and Ben Johnston, which were all converted by Ben Reynolds.

Then the Giants conceded two further tries in the opening 10 minutes of the second half to hand the initiative back to the Tigers after Lolesi’s side had clawed their way back to 18-18 at the break.

Well-worked tries from Farrell, Freddy Walker and Molloy, all of which were converted by Ben Whitehead, had put the hosts well and truly back in the hunt.

All that hard work was obviously wasted early in the second period as Castleford extended their advantage to 30-18.

A second from Walker and an effort from Perry Whiteley – both after good work from the highly-influential Cording – cut the deficit to 30-28 in the 56th minute.

But a Johnston try five minutes later proved the decisive Castleford blow.