IN-FORM Giants winger Martin Aspinwall believes his side’s 23-6 home defeat to St Helens has brought the squad back to reality.

After last Saturday’s magnificent 30-8 triumph at Catalans Dragons, the confidence inside the Galpharm camp was sky high.

But Aspinwall admits the defeat by five tries to one against the impressive Saints has brought the Giants back down to earth with a bump ahead of Friday’s trip to Bradford Bulls.

“I think it’s possible that after the way we played in France we were starting to believe our own publicity,” revealed Aspinwall.

“We’d read so much good stuff in the papers about that performance against Catalans that I think it might have got the better of us a bit.

“So the nature of this defeat really brought us back to reality.

“As a result, I think this defeat yesterday hit us very hard.

“We were also disappointed because we created a number of chances and failed to take them, although St Helens obviously had something to do with that!

“I’m sure that if we’d played like we did yesterday against a lot of sides in Super League we would have done more than enough to win.

“But Saints showed with the way they defended their line, particularly in the second half, what a champion team they are. We just couldn’t break them down.

“Hopefully, we can work on this in training this week and make sure there’s no repeat at Bradford.”

Even though Aspinwall was on the losing side, he was still encouraged by his own performance.

But he’s the first to admit there’s still room for improvement.

“Nathan (Brown) has told all his back line he wants to see us making between 16 and 18 carries per game to take some of the pressure off the forwards,” added Aspinwall.

“I’ve always enjoyed getting involved in the game as much as I can and I was genuinely pleased with my contribution in the game.

“But the fact we lost definitely took all the gloss off that.”