GIANTS coach Nathan Brown felt his side’s slow start against St Helens was the root cause of their 15-2 defeat in their play-off qualification clash.

Now facing a Friday night showdown with Catalans Dragons, who finished the regular season in the eighth and final play-off slot, Brown will want his team to get out of the blocks a good deal more sharply than they did at Knowsley Road, where 6,157 saw Saints win with the help of two tries by Kiwi forward Tony Puletua.

“I felt that it was an even contest aside from the first 20 minutes,” said Brown.

“But we didn’t start very well and they had better line speed than us and they kicked and chased better than we did.

“We knew that coming into a semi-final game that the speed would go up. St Helens did that and we didn’t manage to match them.”

However, with his side producing a battling performance for the final hour of the game – in which just one point was scored from a Sean Long drop goal – Brown was not too concerned at the defeat.

“We weren’t too far away and I felt that our performance was pretty good,” he added.

“But Saints were just that bit faster in certain areas and sometimes just being smarter in small areas of the game can make all the difference.

“And, as in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley, we gave the other side a six points start, and Saints made the most of the fact that they had got lucky.”

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St Helens coach Mick Potter is glad of the week’s break that his side’s success affords them before their elimination play-off semi-final.

“We took a few knocks as you will in a game as physical as that, so it is good to have the break from playing,” said Potter.

“I felt that we significantly improved our performance, but we knew that we had to acquit ourselves better against Huddersfield.”