Magic Weekend: Big wins for Castleford and Huddersfield

Huddersfield Giants 54 Bradford Bulls 16

Huddersfield showed no mercy to their stricken neighbours Bradford as they cruised to a fifth straight win to consolidate their place in the top six of the First Utility Super League.

The Giants had nine different tryscorers as they revelled in ideal conditions at the Etihad Stadium to pile on more agony for relegation-threatened Bradford with a 54-16 triumph.

Winners by 66-18 at Odsal in March, Huddersfield beat the Bulls 42-6 at the 2013 Magic Weekend and they once again had too much pace and power for an under-strength side who had just one specialist prop and a rather inexperienced bench.

It was the Bulls’ seventh defeat in eight Magic Weekend fixtures, yet they twice held the lead after making an outstanding start to the match.

Wakefield Wildcats 12 Castleford Tigers 50

Classy Castleford got their First Utility Super League title charge back on track with a ruthless demolition of a poor Wakefield in a mismatched start to the second day of the Magic Weekend in Manchester.

Stand-off Marc Sneyd was the star of the one-sided show with two of his side’s nine tries and seven goals in a 50-12 triumph as the Tigers bounced back from successive defeats to reclaim third place in the table.

Livewire hooker Daryl Clark and blockbusting winger Justin Carney also scored two tries apiece for Castleford, who gained a 49-24 win over their near-neighbours 12 months ago and were once more simply in a different class as they condemned the out-of-touch Wildcats to a sixth defeat in eight Magic Weekend fixtures.

Yet the Wildcats had the first scoring opportunity when hooker Paul McShane burrowed his way to the line from dummy half only to be turned on his back and they suffered a body blow when skipper Danny Kirmond was forced off on 10 minutes after clashing heads with team-mate Dean Collis.

By the time the second rower returned to the action 17 minutes later, his side were trailing 18-0 and virtually out of the contest.

Wigan Warriors 18 Leeds Rhinos 14

Reigning champions Wigan brought down the curtain on an enthralling opening day of the Magic Weekend with an epic 18-14 victory over Super League leaders Leeds.

The Rhinos trailed 18-4 early in the second half but thought they had completed a remarkable fightback when Joel Moon went over four minutes from the end only to have his try disallowed by the video referee.

It was a pulsating finish to the top-of-the-bill showdown that lived up to all expectations and kept the single-day Magic Weekend record crowd of 36,339 so engrossed in the non-stop action that it took them until the second half of the final game to come up with the traditional Mexican Wave.

The Rhinos’ second defeat of the season will now give St Helens the chance to go top of the table when they meet Warrington in the final match of the two-day spectacular on Sunday while some of the gloss was removed from Wigan’s famous win by the loss of stand-off Blake Green with a ruptured bicep.