York Knights secured a comfortable victory in their first-ever Super League Magic Weekend as Huddersfield Giants slipped to a tenth straight defeat.
The Knights scored seven tries as they beat Huddersfield 36-24 to secure their fifth win of the season and move ahead of Toulouse Olympique on the Super League ladder.
Huddersfield came into this game on a nine-match losing streak, however, they boast the best record of any club at Super League Magic Weekend, even snapping a nine-game losing streak at last year’s event when they beat Hull FC.
It wasn’t to be this year as the Giants lost once again and truthfully, they never really looked like winning. Even when they took the lead at 6-4 after 20 minutes, the Knights had dominated that first quarter and it wasn’t long before York reclaimed that lead.
Jon Bennison kicked the scoring off with Cody Hunter and David Nofoaluma also scoring in the first half. Huddersfield started the second half fast as Zane Dunford helped claw it back to 12-14 but Nikau Williams, Denive Balmforth, Cody Hunter and Jon Bennison all scored as part of a Knights’ onslaught in the second half to make it 36-12.
The Giants scored consolations through Olly Russell and George Flanagan but by then, the Huddersfield fans had already spent a good ten minutes chanting that their players were unfit to wear the shirt.
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Huddersfield Giants and York Knights talking points
Worst in Super League
The Giants’ record clearly shows that they are the worst team in Super League, there’s no getting away from that, but today’s performance truly rubber-stamped it.
Improvements have been evident in the past few games under Jim Lenihan, to the point that they almost beat Wakefield but today saw them take some huge steps backwards.
Tasked with opening up Magic Weekend, the Giants should have been buoyed by last week’s performance but once they were hit with any adversity they simply folded and York won the game by simply wanting it more.
IMG may well save them but the Giants offer so little to Super League in terms of occasion, quality, or fandom and it’s hard to see any of that changing or improving any time soon.
York continue to unearth gems
Much has been said about York Knights and their relationship with Newcastle Thunder, something that the Super League side have manipulated to effectively have more than 10 quota players and s second player pool to select from, however, it’s fair to say it’s helped unearth some gems.
Cody Hunter, the clear Man of the Match, is one of those quota players and today’s brace was the latest strong performance from him but another player who has joined in recent weeks and been really impressive is Tom Inman, the former Halifax Panthers hooker.
Disciplinary concern
Cody Hunter was running the show in attack for York but he may find himself in hot water as a result of one of his defensive actions, namely the tackle on Asher O’Donnell.
The Huddersfield man looked for all money as if he would score from just a few yards out but Hunter managed to stop him, although he did so illegally. The incident was not flagged at the time by the referee, however, the Giants confirmed that 18th man Matty English was activated on account of O’Donnell’s injury being caused by foul play.
Hunter utilised a hip drop-style tackle that saw him become an effective dead weight which meant that when landing on the back-rower’s ankle, he caused injury and could well land himself a ban.
Another issue for York could arise after Xavier Va’a made contact with Chris Patolo after knocking the Huddersfield man out and whilst it was clearly from a point of care by Va’a, it’s still something that can lead to a ban. The Knights will be hoping common sense is applied as was the case with Jackson Hastings recently.
Lowly crowd
Super League Magic Weekend will hit a new record attendance this year but you wouldn’t have been able to tell based on this first game with the Hill Dickinson looking near empty for long periods of the game.
Of course, more and more fans turn up during the day and oftentimes fans of clubs involved in later games may watch from the concourse but the facts are that these are two of the poorest-attended clubs in Super League and them kicking the weekend off created a bad look in regards the number of empty seats.
Losing streak continues
As aforementioned, the Giants are stinking the gaff out in Super League and this latest loss now marks ten defeats in a row. In a season when the major concern was that the three promoted sides would create a lop-sided table where teams would constantly get beaten, it’s the Giants who have been the competition’s whipping boys.
Incredibly, one of their two wins came against Wigan Warriors and whilst they’ve been close in games, as was the case last week, they’ve been poor more often than not and simply with games against Bradford Bulls and Wigan Warriors next up, it’s easy to see their losing run continuing.
The Knights take the opener 🫡#SuperLeague | #MagicWKND pic.twitter.com/5975orwnHu
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) July 4, 2026
