Brough luck for poor Giants

Injury-hit Wakefield ended a nine-match losing run against Huddersfield with a hard-fought 18-16 win at the Galpharm Stadium.

Despite being without 11 first-teamers the Wildcats deservedly picked up the two points to close in on a place in Super League's top six.

In contrast near-neighbours Huddersfield are going backwards having won just one of their last seven outings to leave them struggling down in 10th spot.

A home game against a Wakefield side missing so many players looked a good chance to get back on track, and at half-time they looked on course with a 12-8 lead.

However, the wounded Wildcats, who gave a debut to 21-year-old second rower Kyle Bibb, rallied after the interval with influential scrum-half Danny Brough slotting over the game-winning penalty on the hour mark.

Flying start

With so many key men missing, coach John Kear was forced to turn to youth and it was one of his young guns, Aaron Murphy, who opened the scoring when he accepted Scott Grix's long pass out wide to scamper over.

Huddersfield huffed and puffed in their attempts to hit back but their inability to pose a threat quickly led to noises of unrest from the home fans.

Eventually though they managed to find a way through, aided by three back-to-back penalties that left the Wildcats defending deep on their own line.

Luke Robinson made them pay for their poor discipline by ducking over from dummy half, Chris Thorman adding the conversion from wide on the left to put the Giants 6-4 in front.

Within two minutes they had struck again, Murphy turning from hero to villian for the visitors with a horrendous error that allowed Rod Jensen one of the easiest tries he'll ever score.

The centre simply had to put pressure on the ball inside the in-goal area after Wakefield's young winger had made a mess of trying to knock Thorman's dangerous grubber kick to safety.

Amazingly a similar mistake from Michael Lawrence at the opposite end of the field, albeit following a difficult bounce off the hard turf, let the Wildcats get a fortunate try of their own through Tony Martin.

Brilliant Brough

Brough failed for the second time to add the conversion but did come up trumps with the boot after the break, firstly in open play to help his team edge ahead.

It was his grubber kick through that bounced off the knees of Jamahl Lolesi and into the grateful arms of Oliver Wilkes, who gleefully accepted the gift to gallop over for his first of the season.

A pair of Thorman penalties put Huddersfield in front again but a topsy-turvy game took another twist when the full-back knocked on a high bomb, leaving Lawrence with no choice but to dive on the ball in an offside position and let Wakefield to level the scores with a penalty from Martin.

Brough's first successful kick of the night on the hour mark put the Wildcats in front by two, and somehow that slender advantage proved to be enough.

They defended stoutly to stop the Giants breaking through and claim their first away success of the campaign, an even more impressive result considering they were down to the bare bones in terms of players.