Ant

Paul Newlove Keiran Cunnigham Paul Sculthorpe Sean Long Leon Pryce Kevin Sinfield In fact, pretty much ever player for GB from a "big" club who knew no matter how badly they played they would never lose their spot in the team.

Our recent run of wins has included wins away to Wire and Wigan, and before that we only lost by a point to Lees away... Its going to be damn interestin, but the fact we are contenders with Saints, in the semi's for the Grand Final is pretty bloody awesome to someone who watched Huddersfield when a win away to Chorley was considered a good result!

Was that mid season when the entire Hudds team was playing like a set of spanners? Or the game earlier this month when the Giants won at the Piedome?

I am fairly sure he was suffering foul play from Wigan long before that incident...just shows same old Wigan eh.

He is a very good player, plenty of tries this season, solid as they come under a high ball, pace, strength and in the past month playing in centre shows he has good hands too... Nice to see him get some praise from outside the Giants, Lawrence is a quality player too, but more in defence than attack at the moment and McGillvary is going to get his day soon, and will be superb when he does.

We were poor against Cru, clearly guilty of massive complacency which hopefully will have been kicked out of them this week. Earlier in the season when the clubs met Huddersfield were going through seven kinds of turmoil and its a very different team they will face on Saturday. The major questions are on Bret Hodgson and which team he will be playing for on Saturday really. And if Huddersfield can contain the "Warrington Rush play" in the first 20...contain that and they start to crumble it seems. Forget mid season results...we got spanked by Wigan then and look at our last result at the Pie Dome.

Oh, and where were the criticisms of Saints last season when, with over 1000 Huddersfield fans making the trip the crowd there was only 6157?

Cru fans turned up in good numbers and good voice, they sounded great because they were all sat under the TV gantry and therefore the mics Those in the ground will confirm that while Crusaders were better at holding a tune, the 5000 Giants fans the made a lot of noise too, made for a cracking atmosphere too. I hope Crusaders go from strength to stregnth

For most of the game Thaler was letting Cru lay on at the tackle as long as they wanted, but penalised Wild (to let Cru score a penalty) as he was actually getting up...there was one period in the match when the Huddersfield ball carriers were on their feet after the tackle and pushed back onto the floor and no penalty...so one decision isnt so clear cut, if Thaler had been reffing evenly throughout then it almost certainly wouldnt have been an issue anyway. As for comments on our crowds, I wont post my real thoughts for worry of being banned, but there are some people that really havent got a clue what they are talking about. Giants average crowd is higher than about 7 other SL clubs... It has shown continuous increase year on year since we rejoined SL (up 111% since 2000, have any other clubs managed that?) Our game this weekend was the only fixture to show an increase over the corresponding league fixture, and thats for a kick off time that is about as unfriendly as it gets to spectators. (with a full local ARL, Cricket, Soccer, RU programme on a the same time, and of course the usual saturday shopping to be done) As for cheap/free tickets...show me a club that doesnt do that. Seriously. Any single SL club that doesnt do that. You odious "

Last season in the playoffs we had just lost the CC final, lost our key playmaker, out of form, out of confidence and missing too many players This season we are on form, full strength (virtually) and our key playmakers are on the park. That said, Cru can spring some surprises, the Giants just need to not be complacent

Well after a minor attempt at picking players on form and not reputation we are back to picking the donkeys the coach likes irregardless of form. International RL should be the pinnacle of our sport, with the very best coach picking the very best English players. I dont ever remember English RL being that and thats why I dont remember England beating the Aussies. Pick players on form an in position. Its not hard.

Cummins should say "fair enough, I'll tell him to take a zero tolerance approach, you tell your players to make sure they dont do anything that could be pinged" Seems fair.

I'm unsure as to whether Wire are right to let Mathers go or not, I am sure I am happy for Huddersfield to let Hodgson go. While he was superb last season for us, this season he is showing his age. And it will be interesting to see how long it takes him to stop passing to the TJ rather than his winger when he gets to Wire.

I dont know about you but I thought it was great to see, and ultimately, the didnt get to the final. And the fact that they did was as much to do with how bad Huddersfield's shape was at the end of what was otherwise a great season for them

Two points. 1. The current system only looks flawed because the team in 8th isnt that hot (whoever it is in the end), but by that token they wont get anywhere. However what if the team in 7th/8th was only a handful of points away from the top 4, having been extremely competative and only lost games by a score or two due to poor luck or contentious reffing decisions? Would it then be so flawed? 2. People are viewing the playoffs entirely in the wrong way, now this is due to Sky pushing it in the wrong way but the race for the league leaders trophy is like the qualification rounds for something like the World Cup Finals (soccer wise) Through the regular season the competition is to get into the finals, the finals then decide who is champion and the playoff scheme weights the rankings accordingly, like a seeding process in pretty much every other competion in the world.

Huddersfield can steal 5th spot of Hull, whether thats something to be desired is a different thing entirely.

Griffin got a match as well, which seems harsh since he was simply the one that Fielden blamed for it. Otherwise its a fair ban, which is unusual for the RFL and shows their inconsistancy and club bias.

You probably missed the bits when Fielden was running away from him when they were both on the pitch. Understandable since you were watching another game.

Rarely a truer word said...

Mason standing on Fielden was out of order, and dangerous play But lets put this into perspective...it happens every single game, from every team that at some point in the ruck, a player will have his leg trodden on, so I hope that all these people screaming for X match bans are happy to cry for the same thing for their own players in the next round when it inevitible happens. As for spoiling in the ruck, Wigan are the champions this season for a reason...

I think it will be a Wigan win, but I think it will be closer than many Wiganers expect. A lot will depend on which Brough turns up to play.

Only flaw is not making Graham take an early bath for his outburst. I hope he RFL show some spine and make an example of Graham that abusing the referee is simply not acceptable. Typically they wont do a thing.

It only looks good cos the ankle clutchers havent been on it for a few months...a few weeks of back to back away games would see the problem sorted, it will only take 3 rounds, two weeks and IIRC thats not uncommon anyway in the season.

Out of all the clubs Wakey have to be most worried really, and rightly so given their track record (and their recent refusal to groundshare with Cas) Widnes are best placed to come up, and much as it pains me to see another club from the wrong side of the hills in SL, it might be for the best.

Pretty much it Steve.