HUDDERSFIELD Giants head coach Nathan Brown said his side ‘quit’ on what he described as his saddest day in coaching.

The Giants suffered their seventh defeat in eight outings and slipped to seventh in the Super League as they were hammered 52-6 at Castleford Tigers – conceding eight tries to one – and Brown was pulling no punches.

“We quit early in the game and as coach I have to share responsibility for that – it is my saddest day in coaching,” said Brown.

“I have been at Huddersfield a while now, we’ve had our share of good times and tough times, but this is the worst day I have had at the club.

“It is a bad day because we were up against a side who are struggling down the bottom of the table and I put out a team with 17 decent players who I thought could win this game.

“But the truth is we quit and it is sad to have to say that.

“We put 17 bodies out there and there were perhaps just one or maybe two who still had some soul left – all the rest were just skeletons.”

Brown did not put down the Giants poor showing to having their minds on next Sunday’s Challenge Cup semi-final clash with Warrington Wolves at the City of Salford Stadium and was more troubled by the loss of form after recent improvements.

“Three weeks ago we sat down and had a few talks as teams do when they have been on a losing run and we decided the next few weeks were important in the build up to the Cup game.

“We put in a solid game when we won against London and then against Hull last week against a good team we played some reasonable footy which suggested we had improved again from the week before.

“We had a good week’s training coming into this one, so it’s tough.”

With the Challenge Cup test now just days away Brown said he would have to weigh up just how they regroup after the Castleford defeat.

“I’m not going to say anything rash and take some time to think this over,” said Brown.

“As a group we will have make some decisions, but we are going to have to be much tougher as a group – we can’t be giving up.”