Huddersfield Giants suffered a disappointing home defeat at the hands of Leeds Rhinos this evening, as they lost out 56-22.
Scoring the first and last tries of the game as well as two in between, it was the 10 tries conceded that brought the Giants’ and Liam Finn’s honeymoon period crashing down.
Following two wins over Wigan and York, many thought that the club could finally kick on after 18 months of poor results under Luke Robinson.
Whilst that could still be the case, tonight’s result feels as though the club have taken a major step back, with their defensive effort one of huge concern.
Assessing the game post-match, interim boss Finn credited the side’s opening few minutes of the game, as George King broke the deadlock on two minutes. However, that momentum would quickly end as Leeds took control just minutes later with a try of their own.
“We started well with a try, but then after that it was downhill from there,” Finn explained.
“I thought the last few weeks we hadn’t made a load of errors and we kicked the ball really well, and today to start the game after the try we made a few errors back-to-back, turned the ball over poorly, and then after that I think Leeds showed us what the top end of this competition’s all about.
“They’ve been a pretty consistent, relentless team in what they do for a couple of years now and they showed the level that they’re at and the level that we’re aspiring to get to.”
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Feeling disappointed with his sides’ effort in defence, the interim boss added: “In that first period when we first gave the ball away, we should have been able to defend better and defend through the middle a bit better.
“The first two tries were really soft on our part and weak through the middle. To concede those ones obviously stung at the time and then the weight of possession just stayed in Leeds’ favour.
“We were chasing our tail and then fatigue started setting in and it becomes even harder. The first two [tries], that got the momentum for them. They were really disappointing from our side.”
Asked how he now picks his side up from such a loss, he explained: “We’ve come off the back of two wins and we were never singing and dancing and getting carried away and thinking we’re the finished article.
“We know we’ve got plenty of things to work on and plenty of things to improve on as a group. Obviously there are going to be setbacks along the way, this is a pretty big one, but the good thing about Rugby League is we get another go next week and we need to make sure we recover right.
“We’re looking into what went wrong today. There’s plenty of things to fix up as we know, but ultimately we’ll get another crack next Thursday.”
