COULD the Giants’ opening pre-season test have gone much better?
In the eyes of head coach Paul Anderson it probably could.
But there’s no denying that a 38-6 away win at fellow Super League side Hull KR, who fielded their strongest available side, was pretty impressive.
The Giants looked fitter, stronger, faster and far better than their completely outclassed hosts, who simply didn’t have any answers to what their opponents threw at them.
Everyone in the travelling party acquitted themselves well.
In the opening 25 minutes when the Giants fielded their strongest available line-up, they looked very, very good.
In fact, they didn’t look too bad when they started to make their first-half substitutions either.
Before the mass changes started to be made, Huddersfield had taken a 12-0 lead on the back of some great approach play.
Danny Brough’s two early 40-20 kicks were a highlight, as were the solid contributions of all three of the Giants debutants, big Australian NRL recruits Ryan Hinchcliffe and Sam Rapira and young loose-forward Oliver Roberts.
The sorry tale of Roberts having to wait over 12 frustrating months to make his claret and gold debut following his move from Bradford Bulls has become a major talking point.
So it was fitting that the 21-year-old made the first telling contribution of the contest, coming straight off the deck after taking a big hit to plunge over under the posts after five minutes for the first of Brough’s four first-half conversions, two of which he landed from the touchline.
And the visitors’ lead was doubled in the 17th minute when a fantastic Rapira offload under heavy pressure paved the way for Scott Grix to cruise through a huge gap and feed Leroy Cudjoe to touch down unopposed.
Although the Giants were clearly the dominant force, there were still periods when they were forced to defend their tryline, which they did admirably and were rewarded for their efforts with two more tries in the final 11 minutes to lead 24-0 at the interval.
First to strike was Ukuma Ta’ai, who charged onto a Brough cut-out pass to charge over, and then on the stroke of half-time Joe Wardle squeezed in at the corner from acting half-back after wing partner Aaron Murphy had been held up just short.
The Giants continued the second half from where they left off in the first, with Jermaine McGillvary touching down in the corner in the 44th minute after the ball was swept to the right, although Brough was unable to add the extras for the first time.
At that stage Rovers were looking a sorry side, and that was reinforced six minutes later when Cudjoe crashed over for the softest of tries, with the lively Jamie Ellis failing to convert in the absence of the departed Brough. His good work had been done, giving Jake Connor the chance to take over at stand-off.
The impressive Michael Lawrence was denied in the 55th minute when he was held up over the tryline, but there was nothing the Robins defence could do to prevent hard-working prop Daniel Smith crashing over seven minutes later.
The home fans almost had something to cheer about in the 70th minute when Kieran Dixon appeared to have a walk-in, but he then somehow spilled the ball with a defender nowhere near him. But the winger did make amends with five minutes remaining by feeding Matty Marsh to score from five metres out for Ryan Shaw to add the conversion, although it couldn’t disguise the fact that this was a thoroughly one-sided contest.
