MATCH REPORT | LEIGH LEOPARDS

Huddersfield Giants were edged out 24-28 by Leigh Leopards on Thursday night at the John Smith's Stadium in Round 13.

Luke Robinson reshuffled his team for the visit of Leigh Leopards, with Jacob Gagai not featuring for personal reasons, Sam Halsall was recalled to the wing and Jake Bibby moved into the centre, and George Flanagan took his familiar place back at full-back.

The Giants started strong within the first ten minutes, with pressure on the Leopards line, but a penalty saw Adrian Lam's team move up the field and Issac Liu crashed through a huge gap to open the scoring.

Keanan Brand took further advantage of some slack defending and raced down the left hand side, feeding Ben Mcnamara to slide over underneath the posts.

There was a moment of magic from the returning Flanagan however, he stepped inside and out and faked a pass to send Mcintosh out of his way and escape the clutches of Niu to reduce the arrears to 6-12.

Straight after the half-time interval, David Armstrong stalled through another gap in the Giants rearguard to restablish the two-score advantage for the Leopards, with another try soon after in contentious circumstances.

Replays showed that Lachlan Lam was ahead of the play-the-ball after a fast break, but the ball was fed out to him on the wing and he dived over, the video ref confirming the decision of try.

Frankie Halton then crashed over through Adam Clune and that looked like that was the game, until an unlikely recovery from the Giants.

A free flowing move involving both our six and seven on the Leopards' line saw Adam Swift acrobatically dive over in the corner, Flanagan adding the extras.

Sam Halsall then picked a pass from Lachlan Lam on his own 20m line and outpaced the whole Leigh side to race home underneath the posts, with the scores now standing at 18-28.

A huge spiralling kick from Tui Lolohea caused confusion with Bailey Hodgson and he spilled the ball into the grateful arms of Leroy Cudjoe who brought the scores back to four, with the added help of a Flanagan conversion who remained perfect on the evening.

Then, with seconds remaining, another high kick wasn't dealt with by Hodgson who spilled the ball into Edwin Ipape who was in an offside position, it wasn't picked up by the match officials however and the final hooter sounded, Leigh taking the two points after what looked like an unlikely possible comeback from Luke Robinson's side.