Situation for Giants is far from bleak, believes Murphy

LITTLE has gone right for Huddersfield Giants since they were dismissed 32-8 at Wigan Warriors in the 2015 Super League semi-finals.
Huddersfield Giants' Aaron Murphy ( Picture: Bruce Rollinson).Huddersfield Giants' Aaron Murphy ( Picture: Bruce Rollinson).
Huddersfield Giants' Aaron Murphy ( Picture: Bruce Rollinson).

That defeat began a downward spiral which led to Huddersfield finishing bottom of the table last year and almost being dragged into the ‘£1m-game’.

They will return to Wigan tomorrow still hurting from a 30-0 drubbing a few miles away at Leigh Centurions last week.

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But, despite three defeats in five games this year, centre Aaron Murphy believes Huddersfield are not far from finding winning form and if they can upset the odds this weekend it could begin a climb back up the ladder.

“The main thing we’ve got to do is put in a good performance,” said Murphy of tomorrow’s challenge.

“We can’t even worry about the result. I don’t think the game last week justified 30-0, but that what it was.

“We need to dust ourselves off. We’ve had a long turnaround, which will help us, but we have got to play well.”

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Murphy admitted heads have been down this week, but he insisted the situation is not as bleak as it might appear.

“I don’t think we need to be too down,” he stressed. “We are four points better off than we were this time last year. I don’t think it needs to be all doom and gloom.”

The unpredictable nature of Super League gives Huddersfield cause for optimism, believes Murphy.

Last year’s Grand Final runners-up Warrington Wolves have yet to pick up their first point and they also lost at Leigh two days ago.

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Fellow big guns St Helens have not won since beating Leeds Rhinos in round one and that has left the competition wide open.

Murphy said: “Anyone can beat anyone, this year has already shown that.

“Hopefully, we can create an upset on Sunday. We believe we can beat anyone and I don’t think we are far off.

“We had quite a lot of attacking sets last week, but we just didn’t get a bit of polish on our sets to finish them off.

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“I can understand why people would say we are underdogs this week, but we just need to put in a good performance and show people what we can do.

“It is still early in the season, it’s only round five and there’s a long way to go.

“Obviously, we need to start picking up some victories, but I don’t think we need to be panicking about results just yet.”

Coach Rick Stone says Huddersfield have identified what they need to do better in tomorrow’s game.

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“Obviously we are disappointed about last week’s result,” he conceded.

“We thought we competed pretty hard, but we got outplayed, basically. We’ve had a good look at our game.

“The longer turnaround has given us a few more training sessions. We’ve had a look at our structure, or lack of it and we’ve also looked at how well we competed. A lot of decent things came out of the game, but our last play kicks and our patience wasn’t great.”