Tui Lolohea’s first-half double helped Luke Robinson make a winning start as permanent Huddersfield head coach with a 22-16 victory over a gutsy London Broncos at a sparsely-attended John Smith’s Stadium.
The Broncos had clawed back an eight-point half-time deficit to briefly lead, but the Giants piled on the pressure in the final stages and after two Olly Russell penalties, Harry Rushton crashed over to seal the win.
It proved another near-miss for Mike Eccles’ visitors after last week’s single-point loss to Leeds, as they battle to finish their sole Super League season by moving off the bottom of the table.
But once again there were plenty of positives with Oli Leyland’s outstanding kicking summoning quickfire tries for Hakim Miloudi and Sadiq Adebiyi early in the second half that threatened to light up a low-key encounter.
How Huddersfield held on to beat Broncos
The Broncos looked sharpest from the off, Adebiyi bulling close before Marcus Stott piled over from close range after a quarter of an hour to give his side a deserved lead.
Leyland’s conversion sent the Broncos six clear and if Josh Rourke had managed to ground the first of many clever kicks from the Broncos stand-off five minutes later the visitors would have been sitting on a comfortable early lead.
Huddersfield Giants’ Oliver Russell (centre) is tackled by London Broncos’ Jack Campagnolo during the first half
Instead, Huddersfield rode the early storm and hit back in the last 10 minutes of the opening period through Lolohea’s contrasting double.
There was a touch of fortune about the opener for the Giants full-back as he raced on to his own deflected kick, but no such questions about the second on the stroke of the hooter as Kevin Naiqama surged over the halfway line before feeding his team-mate to slide over in style.
Tui Lolohea celebrates scoring their side’s second try of the game at the John Smith’s Stadium.
Three successful kicks from Russell gave the hosts a 14-6 half-time advantage but if Robinson’s men thought they had broken their opponents’ resistance they were in for a shock as Leyland inspired a stirring second-half comeback.
His first effort just after the restart was latched onto by Miloudi, then Leyland was again the instigator as his clever grubber eluded everyone bar Adebiyi who touched down in space before Leyland’s kick completed the fightback and gave London a two-point lead.
Two Russell penalties – the second seemingly for dissent after the Giants were awarded a controversial drop-out – shunted the Giants back in front, then moments after London’s Will Lovell was sin-binned for a high tackle, Rushton went over to confirm a hard-fought win for the hosts.
Robinson “frustrated” despite Huddersfield victory
Huddersfield head coach Luke Robinson: “I’m frustrated if I’m honest because I thought our game management was really poor, and we put ourselves under way too much pressure.
“The team spirit and effort was really good, and they worked really hard for each other. It’s more about the game management – if we’d used a little bit more of that I think we’d have run away with that game.”
Luke Robinson was coaching the Huddersfield Giants for the time on a permanent basis, having served as interim since mid-July
London head coach Mike Eccles: “It’s the expectation that kills you – we’ve got to the point of trying to compete and for five, six, seven weeks in a row we’ve been tremendous and we could have got something out of every game.
“When you don’t win those games it’s an almighty fall-off but taking into context what we’ve got out there and are giving away in terms of Super League experience, I’m incredibly proud that we’re nearly winning so many of those games.
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“We’ve been banging the drum saying we want to get off the bottom to make a point and it would be fantastic. It would be a small victory for us and we’ve got two more opportunities to do that.”
What’s next?
Huddersfield Giants host Warrington Wolves on Saturday (6pm ko), the penultimate weekend of the regular Betfred Super League season, while London Broncos travel to face the Catalans Dragons later that day (8pm ko).
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