Giants toppled by Wolves
Warrington proved there was no hangover from their Carnegie Challenge Cup celebrations with a 54-6 home victory over Huddersfield.
Last Updated: 02/09/12 5:34pm
Warrington proved there was no hangover from their Wembley celebrations with a resounding 54-6 victory over Huddersfield on Sunday.
The Wolves served up a 10-try show for the home fans at the Helliwell Jones Stadium but they did not have matters all their way until just before half-time when they were still level at six apiece.
Brett Hodgson followed up his man-of-the-match performance in the Challenge Cup final win over Leeds with another impressive display against his old club.
Full-back Hodgson scored a try, helped set up three others and also kicked seven goals, while Joel Monaghan ran in a hat-trick.
Huddersfield made a promising start with Leroy Cudjoe held up over the line but it was the Wolves who went ahead after 17 minutes.
Monaghan latched onto Stefan Ratchford's well-flighted kick to score in the corner after a surging run from Chris Hill, Hodgson booting the touchline conversion.
Outrageous
But on the half hour Huddersfield stand-off Scott Grix bamboozled Paul Wood with an outrageous dummy to score, converting it himself to level the scores.
Warrington put their best handling move together three minutes later, with Richie Myler, Ratchford and Hodgson combining to put Chris Bridge over to make it 10-6.
Then Myler's kick rebounded off the post to allow Ratchford to cross with Hodgson adding the conversion to stretch the lead to 16-6 at the interval.
The hosts bagged their fourth try 11 minutes after the restart with a sizzling move that saw Hodgson burst onto a pass from Wood for Ratchford to send Myler on an angled run to the line.
Hodgson then went over himself to make it 28-6 before supplying the final pass for winger Rhys Williams to cross.
Centre Ryan Atkins added to Huddersfield's woes with a seventh try with Bridge putting Joel Monaghan over in the corner as Huddersfield fell apart.
The Australian winger completed his hat-trick before Hill capped a fine personal display with the final try of proceedings.
