GIANTS hero Brandon Costin played through the pain to set up a thrilling victory over Castleford and secure a first ever opening day win for Huddersfield in the Super League era.

On five previous occasions, the McAlpine men have fired blanks on day one of their top-flight campaign.

And that unenviable record looked as if it was about to be increased as the Giants trailed 22-14 with nine minutes remaining against the hungry Tigers.

But with time ticking away, Marcus St Hilaire cut the deficit with his second try in the 71st minute before Costin sent the home fans wild with a decisive 76th-minute strike to take the Giants ahead for the first time in the contest.

Up until that stage, Costin had been relatively subdued by his high standards, suggesting he has still not fully recovered from the ankle injury which forced him to miss the pre-season game at Leeds a fortnight ago.

Yet despite his apparent discomfort there was no way he was going to miss out on his chance for glory.

With the Giants desperately looking to keep the ball alive on halfway, substitute Eorl Crabtree attempted to offload to a colleague.

Instead, the ball fell to the ground - "I think 6,000 people in the stadium saw it was a knock-on," was Tigers' coach Graham Steadman's take on an incident which could have gone either way - and Costin was on hand to kick the ball ahead and into the Castleford in-goal area.

Retrieving full-back Tom Saxton looked favourite to knock the ball out for a drop-out and give the Giants one final tilt at the visitors' line.

But as Saxton dithered, Costin pounced and just managed to get the vital touch before sliding out of play.

He then added the conversion and victory had been secured from the jaws of defeat.

Until then, the Giants hardly played like a side who were on the verge of collecting two valuable Super League points.

Huddersfield found it almost impossible to fire on all cylinders as they struggled to re-create the form that brought them the 36-0 pre-season win over the same opposition the month before.

In contrast, the Tigers had improved out of all recognition, with the new half-back pairing of Ryan Sheridan and Sean Rudder making life exceptionally tough for their hosts.

And their 10-0 lead after 16 minutes was no more than they deserved.

Apart from one Darren Turner quick tap penalty when he was halted on the line, the first quarter was all Castleford.

Within three minutes they had taken the lead when former Giants hooker Ryan Hudson raced free on halfway to create the position for Darren Rogers to dive in at the corner and Wayne Godwin landed a magnificent touchline conversion.

That advantage was then extended to 10-0 when Sheridan's `bomb' on the sixth tackle failed to be collected by competing duo Hefin O'Hare and Rogers and fell fortuitously for Waine Pryce to score with ease.

At that stage, the Giants were struggling.

But the introduction of prop Mick Slicker appeared to breathe new life into his side's challenge.

It was his strong drive to the line which created the position from which Costin's pass to send centre Julian Bailey over in the 23rd minute was ruled forward.

From the scrum, however, Castleford spilled possession and Chris Nero was on hand to send Marcus St Hilaire flying in at the corner.

Costin failed with the conversion, but banged over a penalty two minutes later as referee Ronnie Laughton began to lose total patience with the Tigers' attempts to slow the play down.

Godwin then followed with a Castleford penalty before the Giants were handed a major piece of luck.

From Costin's restart, the ball hit the crossbar and resulted in Castleford being trapped in their in-goal area.

And within two plays from the drop-out Paul March had spotted a gap and raced 40m for a fine solo try to make it 12-10 to the visitors and leave it perfectly poised.

But within two minutes of the restart, the Giants were again left with it all to do as Ryan Clayton raced in at the corner off Rudder's forward pass and Godwin added the extras.

Once again the home side fought back when the on-rushing Stuart Jones charged over from a March pass to cut the deficit to 18-14.

Yet in what had developed into a real see-saw affair the Tigers against increased their lead with a Saxton try.

Crucially, however, Jon Hepworth missed two relatively straightforward kicks in the absence of the retired Godwin, and the Giants had been given a lifeline.

In the 71st minute Bailey broke clear to feed St Hilaire to score and Costin added the extras.

And five minutes later Costin made an even bigger contribution to snatch the win.