Stone looks to next term after sad finale

Wigan coach Wane left fuming with showing at Trinity

HUDDERSFIELD Giants head coach Rick Stone could not hide his disappointment after his side ended the season with a fourth successive defeat – despite scoring tries through back row forwards Michael Lawrence and Ryan Hinchcliffe in the 36-12 home defeat in the final round of the Super 8s series.

“We’ve a few injuries but we didn’t manage the game as well as we could have,” Stone said.

“Defensively the soft tries we conceded were really frustrating for us.

“At this level you’ve got to make the opposition work for tries, and we handed them a couple.

“It was a wet slippery night, but Leeds definitely showed more resilience in defence.”

Leeds coach Brian McDermott admitted his side enjoyed the perfect preparation for their play-off semi-final with skipper Danny McGuire and his long-serving halfback partner Rob Burrow, both in their final season with the Rhinos, taking their combined try tally in Super League to 404 as the visitors ran out comfortable winners at the John Smith’s Stadium.

The only disappointment for McDermott was the loss of second rower Brett Delaney with a hamstring tear which will force him to miss next Friday’s clash with Hull FC at Headingley.

“It was a good workout. Lots of blokes were physically challenged and we’ve come out of it with no injuries, apart from Brett Delaney,” McDermott said. “It’s not looking good for him and I don’t think he will play next week.”

Leeds never looked back after racing into a 16-0 lead courtesy of tries from Kallum Watkins, McGuire and Jimmy Keinhorst.

McGuire added a second after the break to extend his lead at the top of the Super League chart to 236 and Burrow scored his 168th to climb up to eighth in the all-time list.

“It was a difficult one to gauge because I wasn’t sure what Huddersfield would be like and we unapologetically had our minds on next week, but there was a lot of commitment to our defence,” McDermott said.

“We showed a very good attitude. It was a tough encounter to start with so I’m very pleased. I’m not being disrespectful to Huddersfield but against a switched-on defence, I’m not sure we would have scored as many tries.”

McDermott admits that McGuire will be sorely missed when he joins promoted Hull KR next season.

“He’s still one of the best halfbacks who can play what’s in front of him,” he said.

McDermott will now turn his entire focus on Hull, who were 48-16 winners against leaders Castleford to clinch a second successive top-four finish.

“They’re a good team, extremely physical, and we’re going to have to be good,” McDermott said. “We’ll have to roll our sleeves up and get our tackling shoulders ready.” WIGAN coach Shaun Wane was fuming after his side ended the season with a 32-0 thrashing at Wakefield.

The 2016 Super League champions went into their final Super 8s fixture needing an unlikely 90-point victory margin to pip St Helens to a trip to Castleford in next week’s semi-finals but produced an insipid performance to be nilled for the first time this year.

It means a sixth-placed finish for the Warriors, who began the year on a high with victory in the World Club Challenge but end it without domestic silverware and have failed to reach the play-offs for the first time since 2006.

“That was way below our standards,” said Wane, who refused to condemn Castleford’s decision to field a weakened team for Friday night’s match against Hull, who clinched third place with a 48-16 victory over the table-toppers.

“That’s up to the coach, he has to do the right thing, it’s his call.

“My only concern is we’ve got absolutely nothing out of the season and the manner we lost the last two games has been really poor. It is what it is, we’ve done this to ourselves.

“There are no excuses, it was not not good enough. We played like it was a pre-season game.

“At the minute I am fuming but in two weeks’ time, in the cold light of day, I may need to re-check myself.

“We’ve won a World Club, got to a final and nearly got to the semis but we’ve had too many bad spells. With the injuries, no club would have dealt with what we’ve dealt with but the poor performances were way off.”