Super League: Huddersfield Giants 36-24 Castleford Tigers - Ricky Leutele runs in hat-trick

Ricky Leutele's second score for Giants was a gamebreaker

Ricky Leutele's hat-trick helped Huddersfield Giants to victory and quelled Castleford Tigers' remarkable second-half fightback.

Giants led 18-0 at the break after a utterly dominant first 40 in which Owen Trout, Luke Yates and Jermaine McGillvary crossed with ease.

Jake Trueman started the comeback and Tigers led when he scored his second after Mahe Fonua and Greg Eden tries.

Yet it was all in vain as Leutele's 16-minute treble settled it for Giants.

It leaves the Giants just two points behind leaders St Helens, while the Tigers are second-bottom.

Ian Watson's side were scarcely threatened to any great amount as they racked up a healthy lead in the opening period, inspired by Chris McQueen's graft and craft and the livewire dummy-half work of Danny Levi.

Trout battered his way over from one such Levi spark, while Yates took a McQueen offload to streak in and McGillvary's score was raw power on the right.

And, when they were finally put on the backfoot by the Cas revival, Leutele showed composure and class to finish off under pressure for a rapid hat-trick - notably when George Lawler had gone to the sin-bin to leave Cas short-handed.

Once again the crackdown on late shots came to the fore as referee James Child was forced to send players from both sides to the sin-bin, and it almost had a telling outcome.

Levi went off for Huddersfield when he clattered Joe Westerman after the ball had gone, while McGillvary was deemed to have caught Gareth O'Brien.

It was with the England winger off the field that Cas scored twice down his left edge, first with Eden racing in and and then turning provider for Trueman.

Westerman was at the heart of their best work, unlocking the Giants defence with clever inside balls and offloads, while Trueman's double highlighted the freedom he has enjoyed with Paul McShane in their halves.

Having expended so much energy for their response, Cas eventually ran out of steam and as such it might result in mixed emotions for head coach Lee Radford.

Huddersfield coach Ian Watson:

"You need to win the game the right way. I totally get what the referees are doing and what everybody is looking at. But the sin-binnings today were pretty harsh and there were a couple that I found difficult.

"What seems to be creeping in is gamesmanship, players trying to cheat a penalty and that's got to come out of the game because it's turning into a bit like football.

"The game is hard enough to referee without people holding their face when people touch it slightly or people diving and rolling around on the floor.

"We need to win the right way and that's something we have spoken to our players about, we don't want to be faking or cheating. Too many players at the moment look like they're doing that.

"Castleford need a bit of credit. They upped it and brought it to us at the start of the second half.

"We dropped off and made errors to put ourselves under pressure and Cas capitalised when we went down to 12 men."

Castleford head coach Lee Radford:

"The influence they're (yellow cards) having on the game is significant. If you're a neutral, it's great watching but we're promoting blokes to roll all over the floor now when there's any contact with the head.

"We went from major disappointment at half-time to thinking we were in with a chance but it ultimately came down to that first 40 minutes.

"Our contact areas were really poor in the first 40 minutes. We never gave in, they kept swinging, and it could easily have swung either way."

Huddersfield: Lolohea; I. Senior, Leutele, Cudjoe, McGillvary; Russell, Pryce; Hill, Levi, Trout, McQueen, Roberts, Yates

Interchanges: English, Greenwood, O'Brien, Ikahihifo

Sin-bin: Levi (37), McGillvary (55)

Castleford: O'Brien; Olpherts, Fonua, Turner, Eden; McShane, Trueman; Smith, Lawler, Matagi, Blair, Sutcliffe, Westerman

Interchanges: Robb, Edwards, Hepi, Watts

Sin-bin: Trueman (28), Lawler (62)

Referee: J. Child