Embarrassed Leroy Cudjoe still has complete faith that the Huddersfield Giants can retain their Super League status.

Huddersfield’s hopes of avoiding relegation to the Championship were dealt a hammer blow with Saturday’s 48-40 defeat at Leigh Centurions, who have joined Leeds Rhinos in securing two of the Super League spots for 2017, leaving the Giants, Hull KR and Salford battling for the other two.

But Cudjoe knows that if his side can learn the brutal lessons from their first-half no-show at Leigh Sports Village when they trailed 42-10, then they are more than capable of beating Leeds at home on Sunday and Hull KR away seven days later to earn the third automatic top-flight spot and avoid having to battle it out for the final place in the ‘Million Pound Game’.

“Everyone’s embarrassed with that first half performance. What we dished up was simply not acceptable,” said the England centre, who scored twice as the Giants cut the final deficit to eight points at Leigh with a spirited second-half showing.

“But that’s what happens when you start big games with errors and penalties, and not enough urgency in defence.

“What we’ve got to do now is fix things up very quickly and make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again.

“We’ve got two ‘Grand Finals’ now against Leeds and then Hull KR, because we know these are ‘must-win’ for us.

“We know we can play well and get the results needed, but we must learn that it ain’t just going to happen – we’ve got to make it happen!”