The words that have been so apt for Huddersfield over the past few years. I fear that is what this year will be described as too. We were knocked out of the Challenge Cup by Castleford earlier today (Sunday), a competition that many of us Giants' fans thought we had a chance of winning. Especially as the league has slipped out of our grasp over the past few weeks.
I went to the PROBIZ Coliseum - as it's now known - today full of optimism. Confidence wouldn't have been the appropriate word as I didn't have bucket loads of confidence in getting the victory. A lot of us travelled the short distance to Castleford; the singing was great, from both sets of fans. The official attendance was only 6,336 - that was pretty surprising for someone who was stood in the ground. It felt like there were so many more people there, it looked like it too. Credit must go to both sets of fans for creating such a good atmosphere for the entirety of the match.
Castleford fully deserved their victory. They were the much better side throughout, even through my claret and gold tinted specs (well, my aviators!). Yes a few decisions didn't go our way but we got some decisions that we didn't deserve too. Bentham will have better games I'm sure but it would be cowardly to blame him for our defeat. More so if you try and blame Danny Brough for missing those decisive kicks, if we'd have played well enough we wouldn't have needed those kicks to win the match.
Our players looked gutted at the end of the match, I was gutted too. We were all gutted. I shed a tear or two, but it wasn't just over how gutted I was over being knocked out of the competition, it was also over how happy the Castleford players, and fans, were. You could see how much it meant to them. I spoke to a few Castleford fans on the way out, congratulated them and wished them well for the rest of the season, in both the Challenge Cup and the league. If you weren't one of them, but you're a Castleford fan reading this, that goes to you too. I seriously hope you win the whole thing as I always support the team who knocked us out of the comp.
I think Nathan Brown summed up the whole match with this "At the end of the day, we could have given ourselves a better shot." We lost to the better team on the day. Hopefully the Giants can kick on and have a shot at the Grand Final this year. I hate to say it but I think it'll be another year of nearly but not quite for us.
