Paul Anderson's changes justified as Huddersfield Giants thrash St Helens
Sunday 22 May 2016 19:11, UK
Huddersfield coach Paul Anderson was delighted his bold team selections paid off after the Giants hammered St Helens 48-20 at Magic Weekend.
Anderson dropped Ryan Brierley in favour of long-serving full-back Scott Grix, who is fit again after spending three months on the sidelines with a shoulder injury, and restored former Saints scrum-half Jamie Ellis to the starting line-up.
"Ryan is going to be a very good player for this club for a long time," Anderson said. "He is learning a new position and it's hard to learn on the run.
"It was probably the most experienced team we've had out all year. I just felt going back to experience was probably the right thing to do."
Grix was at the heart of an impressive early defensive effort as Huddersfield soaked up pressure from Saints before scoring three quick tries to establish a 16-0 lead.
St Helens briefly struck back through ex-Huddersfield centre Matty Dawson but England winger Jermaine McGillvary scored his second try of the match early in the second half to keep the clinical Giants on top and skipper Ryan Hinchcliffe scored his first Super League try in a late points spree.
"It's been coming for a while," Anderson said. "We've been building and, even though we lost at Catalans last week, the performance with a young team was pretty good.
"We're a good team and today we showed some real patience. Saints asked a lot of questions and caused us some problems. I'm just real happy with our resolve in a big game and on a big stage.
"I'm real pleased Hinch got over line, he's been held up more times than I care to remember. But we won't fall in love with ourselves. We need to keep improving."
St Helens missed the chance to draw level on points with Wigan, Warrington and Catalans Dragons, but coach Keiron Cunningham saw enough to encourage their hopes for the rest of the season.
"Huddersfield should go buy a lottery ticket tonight," he said. "You make your own luck in rugby league and they certainly did that.
"They did a real good job. I thought we actually started the better of the two teams but we couldn't hang in there for long enough periods.
"I'm not overly disappointed with the team. There were some good patches. There are very fine margins in rugby league and, if you are consistently not good for 80 minutes, you lose the energy battle and you get results like this.
"It's just happening too often for us. That's the disappointing thing. We're searching for consistency. We can string two or three good performances together and then seem to let ourselves down.
"There is still a long way to go in the season. The top four and the top eight is up for grabs for anybody. All we need to do is find some consistency."
Cunningham sprang to the defence of 20-year-old centre Calvin Wellington, who gifted a try on his debut to Huddersfield second rower Ukuma Ta'ai when he dropped a pass near his own line.
"Everyone remembers the incident but a couple of people around him let him down," Cunningham added. "Calvin is a great talent and he will get plenty of shots."
