Huddersfield Giants: Luke Yates determined to move on quickly from Challenge Cup Final heartache

Huddersfield are back in Super League action at Catalans Dragons on Friday, just six days after their agonising 16-14 loss to Wigan Warriors in a thrilling knockout showpiece.

For captain Luke Yates, it was a second Cup final disappointment after Salford Red Devils’ loss to Leeds Rhinos at Wembley two years ago.

Perhaps inevitably, Salford were well-beaten in their first game after the final, conceding 58 points away to Wigan, but they won all three of their remaining league fixtures after that, including defeats of Catalans and eventual champions St Helens.

A change in the calendar means Giants still have half a season in which to secure a play-off place, but the tight nature of the league table ensures they can’t afford to feel sorry for themselves for too long.

Games in Perpignan are always a tall order for the away side and the emotion of last Saturday will make it a particularly difficult task for Giants. But a win on Friday would move them above Wigan into third place and Yates has urged his team-mates to channel their disappointment in the right direction.

“I did this in 2020 as well, it is such a horrible feeling,” said the Australian. He will miss the next two games through suspension after being charged with a grade B high tackle in the Cup final, but avoided additional punishment over a grade A dangerous contact offence.

Opponent Morgan Smithies received separate two-match penalty notices for grade B and C high tackles.

Yates stressed: “You have to take stock and stick together and use it as motivation for the back end of the season, to go on and win Super League.

“We have got to take our licks for a few days and then refocus. That’s what we will do.”

Getting so close to ending the club’s 69-year wait for a Challenge Cup triumph probably made the defeat at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium even harder to take than if Giants had been out-played.

They led for most of the game and were in front with less than five minutes left, until Liam Marshall’s try broke their hearts. Giants will be going into Friday’s match in good form and Yates accepted: “I felt like we were the better side for the majority of the game, but they were good enough to come back and bite us at the end, so fair play to them.”

Yates, like his coach Ian Watson, has cleared full-back Tui Lolohea of blame for the defeat. The stand-in kicker missed four of his five attempts at goal, but Huddersfield’s captain stressed: “We should have been able to score enough tries to put them away.

“Russ (regular marksman Oliver Russell) had his hamstring hurt and he is our main goal kicker, but we are not putting any pressure on Tui to bear that loss. It is what it is, we should have been able to come back and keep the pressure on them and win.”

That is a view shared by Russell himself. The scrum-half had a fine game, but the hamstring issue he suffered six days earlier in a Super League win over Toulouse prevented him taking kicking duties.

“That is not the reason we lost,” insisted the 23-yar-old of Lolohea’s misses. “Tui was one of our best players. He has been great all season and I really enjoy playing with him. He needs to keep his head up, it’s not his fault at all.”

Russell revealed he “probably could, maybe” have stepped in, but would have risked aggravating the recent injury. Having got through the 80 minutes, he stressed: “I think I’d rather be on the field playing than risking doing my hammy again kicking. As I’m left-footed, all the pressure’s on my right foot when I’m kicking and that was the one that hurt.

“It wasn’t really worth doing a goal kick from a sideline, where I’d be striking the ball harder, for me to come off and not be part of the final.

“I did the team run on Friday and couldn’t feel it, it had healed with the rehab I’d done. I made the decision I’d better not goal kick as that would put a bit of aggro on it and it could have gone again.”

Russell insisted Giants’ priority now is to recover as quickly as possible and set their sights on going one better in this year’s Grand Final.

He said: “We’ve got to get back to Super League as we’ve shown everyone who’s watched that game we can play in big games and we play the right way. We’ll dust ourselves down and get back to it. We want to get to Old Trafford on September 24.”