Giants see off Crusaders
Liam Fulton scored on his debut to help Huddersfield beat Celtic Crusaders in a low-key encounter.
Last Updated: 10/04/09 9:29pm
Liam Fulton scored on his debut to help Huddersfield beat Celtic Crusaders in a low-key encounter.
Australian Fulton reacted quickest to a loose ball and slid over the line for a try on 49 minutes.
Brett Hodgson's conversion made it 18-4 as Adam Peek had given the visitors hope at the start of the second half by powering over after intercepting Hodgson's attempted pass to Martin Aspinwall.
The closest Crusaders had come to scoring before then came in the first half when misplaced passes twice let them in - but the Giants' defence recovered to stop them short of the line.
Huddersfield led 12-0 after the break thanks to two converted tries from David Hodgson which were both set up by Kevin Brown.
The stand-off supplied the final pass in a flowing move to allow Hodgson to power over in the corner on seven minutes.
David Hodgson was then first to react to Brown's clever kick-through and he crossed the line unchallenged on 27 minutes.
The Giants produced several flowing moves in the first half which saw them go close. The best came on 22 minutes when Brett Hodgson played Brown in but the stand-off was stopped short of the line.
Escape
Crusaders had a lucky escape just before the break when a David Faiumu kick-through bounced off a Celtic player and into the arms of Paul Whatuira - but he could not ground the ball before carrying it out of play.
In the second half the sides traded tries and then Anthony Blackwood finished off a Crusaders' breakaway started by Damien Quinn on 60 minutes after they had done well to resist heavy Huddersfield pressure.
But Huddersfield went on to comfortably record their sixth Super League win of the season with late tries from Brown and Michael Lawrence to leave the visitors still searching for a first Super League win.