Huddersfield Giants head coach Luke Robinson has admitted that he would not have been able to live with himself if his side hadn’t beaten Salford Red Devils on what was club legend Leroy Cudjoe’s final home game.
Cudjoe will hang the boots up at the end of the season and today marked the final game he will play at home as a Huddersfield Giants player. As a one-club man, making his 407th Giants’ appearance today, Cudjoe received a guard of honour and kicked the final points of the game as Huddersfield won 22-8.
That win didn’t look likely just over ten minutes from time with the Giants trailing 8-4 but three tries in the final ten minutes secured the win, with the last of those being converted by Cudjoe.
The final try was set up initially by a rampaging run from the 37-year-old and Luke Robinson recalled watching it, before noting: “Luckily, you didn’t see me ten minutes before as I think I broke about three seats up there by kicking them.”
Speaking to Sky Sports post-match, he admitted: “It wasn’t a pretty performance, was it? I thought we were really, really panicky with the ball, and I think we were completing about 56 per cent at one point in the first half, which gives them a lot of possession.”
Huddersfield Giants boss makes touching comments about retiring club legend
He’d also quickly move to pay tribute to Salford who simply tired in what was an error-strewn and attritional game, with Robinson paying credit to counterpart Paul Rowley.
He said: “You’ve got to have so much admiration for what they’re going through at Salford. Rowley seems to get the best out of it, it doesn’t matter which players play, they put 100 per cent effort in and make it a bit of a dogfight.
“I spoke to the players before the game and said, ‘This is not going to be an easy game, it’s going to go down the wire, they are trying their nuts off, each and every one of them, they are trying 100 per cent, giving everything’, and I knew it was going to be one of those games.”
More important than any of that though was getting the win for Cudhoe with Robinson admitting that defeat would have been “horrendous”.
He explained: “For me, it was more about just getting a win for Leroy because of what he’s done within the game, within the community, within the club. It would have been horrendous, I couldn’t have lived with myself if I was the coach that didn’t get a win on his final home game.”
Paying further tribute to the veteran, who started his career in the backs but played prop today to mean he has started a game in every position outside of hooker, Robinson made an emotional statement that sums up what he and so many others think of Leroy Cudjoe.
He explained: “I’m very privileged to actually play with him on his debut as it was my debut for Giants, and his. We played Leeds in 2008, and I’ve been on a journey with Leroy and seen the other players he’s become, but more than anything else, the man he has become.
“I’ve got three young boys that love rugby league, and I’ve always said that if they turn into half the man Leroy is, I’d be unbelievably proud. It’s very fitting that we’ve won, even though it was ugly.”
Not the prettiest by any means, but we get the W to round off a great afternoon for @Elroy_cudj 🤝#Since1895 | @WOMAGGroup 🤝 pic.twitter.com/iNAVF1EBwl
— Huddersfield Giants 🐮🔔 (@Giantsrl) September 14, 2025
