JIM LENIHAN admits Huddersfield Giants’ first win under his tenure has been a long time coming.
The Giants held off a late comeback to beat York Knights 24-22 – their first win since beating the same opponents on April 4 – to finally end their twelve-match winless run.
Despite having pushed both Wakefield Trinity (29-23) and Wigan Warriors (24-10) close over recent weeks, Huddersfield had never quite managed to get themselves over the line.
But they held off a late York comeback to finally return to the winners’ circle, leaving their head coach pleased.
“I think it’s just a little bit more of relief and just happy for the players more than anything else,” admitted Lenihan, who took over at the helm in May.
“Like I’ve said for a while now, we’ve been working really hard at trying to better ourselves.
“We’re changing the way we think about ourselves. We’re changing the way we’ve defended. We’ve changed the way we’ve attacked.
“It’s been a long time coming, this win, with the fact that we put ourselves into games and then some inconsistency at different times undoes it.
“I’m just happy for the team.”
Huddersfield lost Niall Evalds to an early failed HIA, forcing a reshuffle among their backs that left a number of players out of position, whilst George Flanagan and Mathieu Cozza saw efforts ruled out after a video review.
And though late tries from York’s Jordan Thompson – making his 400th career appearance – and Tom Inman inside the final seven minutes brought the score back within two points, Lenihan was confident his side would see out the victory.
“It was never in doubt,” the head coach stressed.
“We obviously lost Niall early, which meant a big shuffle. We had back-rowers out in the centres.
“I think in the first half we had four opportunities in good ball down there and we came away with one try and three no tries.
“I thought we largely were the better side for the day and then didn’t quite get the scoreboard pressure that we wanted in the first half with the opportunities we created. It quite easily could have been a lot more.
“Then the tries we gave away at the back end were a little bit soft too.
“We always said it was never going to be losing by a lot and then suddenly start winning by a lot.
“We’re going to have to tough our way out and defend our way out at the back end of the game and it was good that that happened.”