The Giants suffered their third consecutive defeat after a 30-4 loss on Friday night under the lights at the John Smith’s Stadium to Leigh Leopards.
The last two games have seen them concede a total of 58 points and only scoring four. They sit 10th in the league having played 11 games and losing seven of them, only winning four.
Head coach Ian Watson put the blame on himself for the defeat to Leigh at the full-time whistle: “I’m at fault because I picked the team.” He also mentioned that absences are affecting the team: “I don’t want to be too critical in terms of the attack. You lose people like Theo and Olly, the control of the team, and you’re in trouble.”
This season has been a massive struggle for the Giants who have never seemed to really get any consistency together from the get-go and have also had some bad defeats along the way. At the start of the season, many tipped Huddersfield to finish in the top two.
Sky Sports’ Brian Carney apparently saw a coming together between two of the stand-offs. Carney wasn’t surprised by the altercation involving star player Jake Connor saying: “We believe there was a coming together between Ben Reynolds and surprise surprise Jake Connor.” This all seemed to be due to frustrations surrounding their league position and the performances throughout the season.
There have been talks that they may even lose certain players at the end of the season with one of their youngsters Owen Trout set to leave after refusing a contract extension at the club and is now attracting interest from other Super League clubs. The 23-year-old is interesting the likes of Hull FC and Castleford Tigers who are leading the way to tie down the young forward for next season after not gaining regular game time this season and being more of a squad player.
The Giants will need to up their game and massively improve their form if they are wanting to push up the table looking to get into the play-offs and battle it out for the Super League Grand Final. This looks like a long way off now however, pundit Phil Clarke believes that if they keep their heads, they can still make the Grand Final.
-Ryan Greenwood