Sharp column: Apparently, it's St Helens!

DURING the week I was chatting to Chris Roberts about the impact the Challenge Cup makes in my native Australia.

It was Wednesday afternoon, the day after the draw for the semi-final.

And Chris was asking me if I had ever dreamed of playing in the Cup final when I was watching the match at home as a kid.

I admitted it had crossed my mind because it was such a major sporting event, and that it was amazing to think that we were just 80 minutes away from making that possible.

But my next comment stunned him into silence.

In all innocence I asked: "By the way, who have we been drawn against?"

To me, it seemed a reasonable question, but Chris appeared genuinely shocked that I had no idea.

But I suppose that it was simply down to the nature of our two professions.

It's obviously Chris's job to report the major events of the day, and during the week the main focus was clearly the Challenge Cup draw.

My main focus, however, is not preparing for a Challenge Cup semi-final, but to face Wigan at the McAlpine tomorrow.

It's always been our philosophy to take one game at a time, and I don't expect that to finish now, just because we've reached the last four of the Cup.

Most of the talk inside the squad this week has been concentrating on improving on the way we played in the second half against York last weekend.

The changing room at the end of the game seemed more like a mortuary than the sheds of a side that had just reached the Challenge Cup semi-final.

We were all hugely disappointed with the way we let our standards slip against York, and our sole focus this week has been to get back up to speed against Wigan. Nothing else matters at this stage.

But there's no doubt this Cup run is doing the Giants a power of good, and we're making a lot of new friends.

I would like to think some of our biggest fans have become the ladies who serve us our dinners every lunchtime at the Syngenta complex.

They're all great and are doing a fantastic job in feeding us up.

As far as I'm concerned, it's their generous portions that have been giving us the extra energy required to keep us in the Challenge Cup. More chips, please!