Giants go to Hull and back for win!
HUDDERSFIELD head coach Simon Woolford praised the resilience of his players after they continued their unbeaten start to the Betfred Super League season with a 22-4 victory over Hull KR.
The Giants made it three wins from three at Craven Park, in stark contrast to last season when they struggled after a poor start to the campaign.
Rovers suffered a third successive defeat as they failed to cope with a strong wind.
Woolford admitted: “I thought it was patchy but you’ve got to take into account it’s a tough place to come and play and the wind made it difficult.
“We feel we’ve got a fair bit of resilience in our defence. That is something to be proud of.
“They had the wind in the first half and we defended our try line quite well for long periods.” Woolford put his side’s good start to the season down to being more settled coming into the campaign.
“We started the season last year with seven or eight out of our top 17 unavailable,” said Woolford.
“The guys are a lot more committed and a lot more resilient this year. When we have had to roll our sleeves up and defend our line we’ve been able to do that.”
Woolford had good news on James Gavet, who was carried off on a stretcher early in the second half wearing a neck brace following an innocuous-looking tackle.
“He’s up and walking around so I think it was more precautionary than anything. We’ll be monitoring him during the week,” the Giants boss added.
Louis Senior and Lee Gaskell touched down in the first half for Huddersfield and scores from Paul Clough and Suaia Matagi after the break confirmed their dominance, with Aidan Sezer converting three of the four tries. The home side had nothing to show for their first-half efforts and the closest they came to scoring before the interval was when debutant Joe Keyes was held up over the line on the last tackle.
Rovers finally got on the scoreboard with 10 minutes to go as Ben Crooks dived over in the left corner for his sixth try of the season.
Hull KR head coach Tony Smith admitted to his frustration following his side’s poor performance.
Smith said: “It was frustrating. It was really clunky. I thought we didn’t play the conditions very well, particularly taking advantage of that wind in the first half, we should have been kicking long and early.
“They got a pretty easy ride into halftime. It was hard to watch and it was hard to play in.”
Smith revealed hooker Matt Parcell had suffered an ankle ligament injury during the defeat and would undergo a scan.