Friday's Super League round-up: Huddersfield, Castleford and Hull KR claim victories
Huddersfield Giants defeat Catalans Dragons; Castleford Tigers topple bottom-of-the-table Toulouse to record their second victory of the season; Warrington make it five losses in a row against an inspired Hull KR
Friday 1 April 2022 23:49, UK
We round-up Friday's action in the Betfred Super League, including an emphatic victory for Hull Kingston Rovers and an upset from Huddersfield against the Catalans Dragons....
Huddersfield Giants 28-12 Catalans Dragons
It was four tries on the night for Huddersfield Giants as they claimed their fifth win in seven for the 2022 Super League campaign.
The victory moved them in front of Catalans Dragons into third, Owen Trout and Danny Levi responding to an early try from Samisoni Langi for the visitors.
Tom Davies ended the first half by crossing the line for Catalans, but the unconverted try still left the visitors trailing.
The Giants led 12-8 at the break, with Theo Fages and Josh Jones extending the home side's lead in the second half.
Joe Chan crossed the line for the Dragons in the second half, but it was not enough to fight back.
"I'm delighted," Giants head coach Ian Watson said. "It's a good result for us and we know that to be a top team we need to beat top teams."
The French side arrived late to the John Smith's Stadium, after a delayed flight from Perpignan set the kick-off time back to 8.20pm.
"I'm not going to use that as an excuse," Dragons head coach Steve McNamara said. "We just weren't quite good enough tonight.
"It was a high quality game with high completion rates and we just weren't good enough on the day."
Castleford Tigers 32-6 Toulouse Olympique
Castleford Tigers finally got their second victory of the Super League season against a struggling Toulouse Olympique side.
Greg Eden opened the scoring for the home side, with Niall Evalds and Adam Milner running in against the French visitors before the break.
Jake Mamo and Liam Watts joined in the scoring for the Tigers in the second half, Tony Gigot only managing a late consolation for Toulouse.
"This had the potential to be a banana skin," said head coach Lee Radford. "But it didn't feel like a must-win game.
"It feels like we are building and going in the right direction. I always thought when we got troops back you would see a spike in our performances."
The loss leaves Toulouse in 12th place and still searching for a second victory of their campaign.
"We had a lack of organisation and communication," head coach Sylvain Houles said. "Fair play to Cas, they were more physical and played harder.
"They broke a lot of tackles down the middle and that is not good enough. We need to be better. That's Super League; you need to turn up every weekend."
Hull Kingston Rovers 34-18 Warrington Wolves
It was a fifth defeat in a row in all competitions for the Warrington Wolves as Hull Kingston Rovers ran in seven tries, including a Ryan Hall double which consigned Daryl Powell to asking more questions of his side.
Frankie Halton opened the scoring for the hosts, with winger Hall getting his first of the evening just a few minutes later. Full-back Lachlan Coote was next in for the Robins, followed by the Scotland international setting up Jimmy Keinhorst for the fourth try of the evening for Rovers.
Jez Litten then joined in the action and ran in a try for the home outfit, taking the half-time scoreline to 20-6 and leaving the visitors with a lot of work to do.
Warrington put in their first real response of the evening in the second half, with George Williams and Josh Thewlis running in for the Wire, but they were soon answered with Hall scoring again for the Robins before Mikey Lewis also struck.
"This is not turning around quickly enough," Wolves head coach Powell said. "The blessing in disguise is we haven't got a game next week. It gives us the chance to get after what we have to do.
"We have no durability at the moment. Teams are finding us pretty easy to break down and that's a disappointment."
Hull KR now sit eighth in the Super League table, with the Wolves just one place above them.
"They're not in a good place at the moment," Robins head coach Tony Smith said. "Executing the gameplan and it coming off gave us confidence. It took away from theirs and that's the name of the game."
