12 Sep 2020

Giants fall short in nail-biter

Huddersfield Giants 12-13 Leeds Rhinos

By Joe Buck

A nail biting clash between Giants and Rhinos was once again settled by a one-point margin with Leeds grabbing victory yet again.

The opening fifteen minutes were the Matty English show at the Totally Wicked Stadium.

Unlike the previous few weeks, it was Giants that struck first-blood through English’s first try of the season.

The forward almost doubled his tally minutes later but a knock-on denied that and then, after a quarter of an hour, the prop was sin-binned, judged to have repeatedly infringed the Leeds restart.

Giants were soon dealt another major blow when Adam O’Brien was stretchered off with a suspected neck injury after a clash with Kruise Leeming.

There was also a change of referee as starting referee, Scott Mikalauskas, was replaced by James Child because he had started to lose his voice. 

A totally dominant first half an hour for Giants was almost capped off by a Sam Hewitt try but he agonisingly knocked-on just in-front of the Leeds line.

Two penalties from Ollie Russell, adding to the early converted-English try, nudged Giants into a 10-0 lead at the break.

Much like their previous meeting however, Leeds came back strong as Konrad Hurrell pounced on an error by Leroy Cudjoe to get the Rhinos on the scoreboard.

As the weather turned, so did momentum on the field and after being second-best for most of the first period, it was Rhinos who continued to dominate the opening stages of the second-half.

Their dominance reaped rewards once again, this time Tom Briscoe was the beneficiary out wide and Rhinos, from being ten down, found themselves deservedly, 12-10 ahead.

Another Russell penalty restored parity however and with 20 minutes to go, there was still everything to play for.

Leeds thought they had added a third try, however, Harry Newman had the ball stolen from him by Darnell McIntosh.

Luke Gale opted to take a kick at goal from the resulting penalty but saw his kick just go wide of the post.

Gale and Sezer both had drop-goal attempts which missed the target and as the game progressed into the final ten minutes, all was level.

Gale, not to be denied twice, did successfully convert a drop-goal with five left on the clock.

Richie Myler moments later crashed over the line but a superb tackle from Ashton Golding meant the ball was dislodged and Giants were saved for now.

However, the Rhinos defence held strong and, yet again, Huddersfield were defeated by Leeds by a solitary point.

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