Huddersfield v Castleford: Teams

Crabtree: Back for Giants

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• Castleford Tigers
• Huddersfield Giants

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Huddersfield and Castleford clash on Friday in a repeat of their Challenge Cup quarter-final tie.

Front row pair Eorl Crabtree and Scott Moore are back from England duty for the Giants, with Michael Lawrence and Shaun Lunt making way.

Martin Aspinwall has dropped out of the squad, with Leroy Cudjoe set to take over on the wing, while there is also likely to be a recall for second rower Simon Finnigan and prop Danny Sculthorpe is set to make his home debut.

Huddersfield edged the Challenge Cup quarter-final 16-14 and Castleford have since lost their last two games, but Giants coach Nathan Brown is taking nothing for granted.

He said: "If you take a look at the sides who won in the Challenge Cup and the sides who lost, it's a bit like chalk and cheese.

"Whilst ourselves and Warrington went on to have a couple of good wins, the sides that lost have had some tough losses.

"Emotionally it's probably quite tough for those two sides because they did have a heartbreaking loss. They were great games and games that could have gone either way.

"Castleford will come here fancying their chances of winning because they could count themselves slightly unlucky from last time."

Tigers boost

England duo Michael Shenton and Joe Westerman come back into the Tigers' squad which lost heavily to St Helens last time, with three-quarters James Ford and teenager Jordan Thompson making way.

Centre James Evans and prop Ryan Boyle are also back in contention after shaking off injuries.

Coach Terry Matterson - who this week signed a new two-year contract with the Tigers - hopes his side can shake-off their Challenge Cup hangover.

"I hope it can snap us out of it because since that game we've been poor," he said.

"Even though we hadn't been getting the results up to that game, we'd been pretty good."

He added: "I don't think it's any coincidence that both us and Hull KR (who lost to Warrington narrowly) have been poor the last two weeks.

"But we have to put that behind us and start now because we're still in a position to do what we wanted to do this year.

"We're in a bad trot with five in a row and we need to turn it around quickly. We know it's not going to be easy because they're a good side.

"But in both games we've played, we've been there or thereabouts. They've been two-point games, we've just been wrong side of the ledger."

Huddersfield 19-man squad: B. Hodgson, Brown, Whaturia, D. Hodgson, Fulton, Robinson, Crabtree, Faiumu, D. Griffin, Lolesi, Raleigh, Wild, Finnigan, P. Jackson, Mason, Moore, Cudjoe, Mossop, Sculthorpe.

Castleford 19-man squad: Owen, Dixon, Shenton, Evans, Wainwright, Chase, Sargent, Huby, Ferres, Clayton, Westerman, Jones, Higgins, Feather, Boyle, Netherton, Faumuina, McGoldrick, Widders.