Huddersfield Giants thrash Catalans Dragons to reach Challenge Cup semi-final

Full-back Jake Connor was the star of the show with a 14-point display which left coach Watson bursting with pride.

The Giants were in control from the off with that man Connor scoring first, followed by tries for Adam Milner and Adam Swift for a 16-0 half-time lead.

Home head coach Steve McNamara spent the second half on the touchline trying to inspire his toothless Dragons – going so well in Super League - but could not lift his side.

Sebsatian Ikahihifo took the Giants further ahead then Esan Masters made it an improbable 26-0 lead before Dragons’ centre Matt Ikuvalu restored some home pride.

Kevin Naiqama finished the romp for Huddersfield, sending them into the semi-finals with a flourish.

Watson – whose side were beaten in the 2022 Challenge Cup final – said: “That’s an awesome win for us, we’ve been slowly building through the season and we were confident coming here.

“We like the weather and it suits the way we want to play, and the boys were outstanding today against a real top-team.

“We like a dry fast track, we feel we’ve got speed and we’re definitely pretty fit as a team.

“Our performances overall have been pretty decent, maybe the Hull KR result was the disappointing one, particularly at home, but other than that we feel we’re moving forward in the right direction.

“It was just a question of piecing it all together and today I thought we did that.

“So far this season we’ve been learning about each other, we had eight new players in the team so everyone is finding out about their consistency and timing, and we’re slowly getting better all of the time.

“The last three weeks have been great and we’re getting better each week and that’s all we speak about, improving every week.”

McNamara said he was “embarrassed and humiliated” by his side’s performance and his players were hurting too with their lacklustre display.

“We’re very disappointed, we were beaten in every department,” the Catalans boss admitted. “Huddersfield have done a really good job on us, they dominated us physically, tactically, in every way.

“They were smarter than us in every area and we’re embarrassed and humiliated by it on our ground.

“Credit to the opposition for what they did to us, sometimes you bemoan your own performance and we’re clearly unhappy with that but the opposition put us in that position.

“Our preparation has been outstanding in the last couple of weeks, we were ready to play and we need to find some answers as to why it didn’t happen tonight because our standards dropped so far below what we require. We were poor in every area and well done to Huddersfield for executing their plan perfectly against us.”