Super League playoffs – Huddersfield v Catalan Dragons
Three of the four Super League play-offs matches this weekend are incredibly hard to call, but there is one that could be classified as a home banker, as the in-form Huddersfield Giants host the Crusaders at the Galpharm Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
A miraculous second half of the season has propelled the Giants into the mix for outright honours in the Super League, and their fifth-place finish has meant they have been given a relatively easy draw ahead of the semi-finals.
However, despite the hopes surrounding Nathan Brown’s side, followers of the Giants will be well aware that their club have never won a play-off game in three attempts, losing 52-4, 58-6 and 40-4.
Brown has named an unchanged side for the knock-out match, and they go into the game with a five-match winning streak under their belts. One of those wins was in fact against the Crusaders, the second time they beat the Welsh outfit this season, but Giants assistant coach Paul Anderson has warned his players that the two previous wins mean nothing in play-off rugby.
“The fact we’ve beaten Crusaders twice in the League counts for very little,” Anderson told the Huddersfield Daily.
“And I go back to my own experience as a player to know that. A play-off game is a one-off and the first thing you have to do is blank out earlier scores. I can remember back at Bradford, we beat St Helens in the play-offs by 40 points and then they beat us by two in the Grand Final (8-6 in 1999).
“That goes to show that when it comes to this type of game what’s gone on before is completely irrelevant.”
The Crusaders sneaked into the final play-off place on the final weekend of fixtures at the expense of Castleford, beating Hull FC 30-24. Coach Brian Noble (pictured right) has weaved his magic wand once again to guide Crusaders this far and has given their fans a taste of Super League play-off rugby for the first time in their brief history.
Even though the Crusaders go into the match as huge outsiders, the fact they have playoff guru Noble in their corner is a huge factor. The former Great Britain coach guided the Bradford Bulls to five consecutive Grand Finals at the turn of the millennium, winning twice at Old Trafford. Noble has also now become the first man to lead three different teams into the play-offs.
Crusaders stand-off Clinton Schifcofske, who has been in excellent form recently, reckons his team have been given an especially tough draw but knows they have the ability within the squad to match any side on their day.
“We’re not a bad little team,” Schifcofske told the club’s official website.
“We’ve improved as the season has gone on. It’s a tremendous effort to be where we are. In April, May and June we were going okay, winning our fair share of games, and then we had a rough trot, losing four or five in a row, but we picked it up towards the end. We started to get a bit of belief and a few results went our way.”
This looks a formality, but anything is possible in the Super League play-offs.
Super League play-offs – St Helens v Warrington
Super League play-offs – Hull FC v Hull KR
Tags: