Huddersfield comfortably sweep aside Catalans

George Flanagan scored 14 points for Huddersfield in their win against Catalans

Betfred Super League

Huddersfield (12) 18

Tries: Flanagan 2, Gagai Goals: Flanagan 3

Catalans (0) 6

Tries: Sironen Goals: Aispuro-Bichet

Huddersfield Giants finally registered their first home win of the 2025 Super League season with an 18-6 victory against Catalans Dragons.

Full-back George Flanagan racked up 14 points for Giants in a player-of-the-match display as the hosts outplayed the club from Perpignan.

Giants wing Jacob Gagai raced clear to score a breakaway try in the first half for his ninth in Super League this season.

This marked the first time Huddersfield have had back-to-back wins during the current campaign, having beaten Hull FC last time out, but they stay 11th in the Super League table, level on points with 10th-placed Castleford.

Catalans fell to their 15th defeat of a disappointing campaign.

After a drab 18 minutes, Flanagan lit up the game when he broke away down the right following a Huddersfield set-piece to dive over under the sticks and break the deadlock.

Flanagan then blotted his copybook when he missed a very presentable opportunity to kick another two points after Catalans' Matthieu Laguerre was caught offside.

From the restart, Catalans' Australian second row Bayley Sironen was sent to the sin-bin for a needlessly high tackle on Matty English.

A slack pass from Luke Keary was then pounced on by Gagai who comfortably intercepted and raced away from just inside the Catalans half, finishing unopposed with a flourish as the Giants doubled their lead after Flanagan kicked the extra two.

Jacob Gagai scored in the first half of Huddersfield's deserved win

With the sun out in the second period, Catalans thought they were on the scoresheet when Oliver Partington dived over next to the posts, but the try was chalked off after Laguerre was penalised for a knock-on on the floor.

Just after the hour mark, a good kick from Keary found Tommy Makinson who unselfishly found Sironen, now back on the field, to dot down and put the visitors on the board with Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet coolly slotting the extras from the left touchline.

That was as good as it got for the visitors who drastically lacked imagination in the final third, being forced into kicking on the final tackle by a Giants defence who kept their concentration despite a dismal 2025 campaign.

After Catalans were caught offside once more in front of their own goal, Flanagan called for the tee and easily kicked his third goal of the match to extend the hosts' lead to eight.

With seven minutes left, the 20-year-old Flanagan collected a short pass from Kieran Rush to hand off three sorry Catalans challenges before touching down to seal a convincing win.

Huddersfield coach Luke Robinson said:

"I must be the only coach that didn't really want to play at home with the form that we've had over the last 18 months, two years, but hopefully that's the monkey off our back.

"We'd like to finish with a bit of a flurry, so it's great to win at home, great to give the loyal fans something to sing about.

"When you play at home, it should be a bit of a fortress where teams don't want to come and where we get wins, but it's not been the case. Hopefully we can change that.

"What we're really proud of most of all is that in the first 10-15 minutes they had the majority of the ball and it would have been very easy for us to fold, but we stuck at it. We played tough rugby.

"We stemmed the tide and after that, if I'm honest, I thought we had full control of the game.

"There's been a lot of games this year where we've been winning and I've been extremely nervous, but I wasn't today. There wasn't one part of me nervous."

Catalans coach Joel Tomkins said:

"I thought we started the game really well, but we've just got no resilience.

"We're probably in quite a rare position where we've got 14 players leaving the club at the end of the year and we've got a lot of new players coming in.

"We can't make play-offs, our season's dead.

"But, as individuals, the players have got to find some personal motivation and some personal pride within their own performance.

"It's my job as a coach to build that but also, individually, players have got to want to perform. They've got to want to give 100% effort."

Huddersfield: Flanagan; Gagai, Milne, Bibby, Halsall; Rush, Frawley; Rogers, Woolford, Powell; Rushton, Greenwood, Cudjoe

Interchanges: Wilson, Golding, English, King

Catalans: Aispuro-Bichet; Makinson, Romano, Laguerre, Darrelatour; Keary, Fages; Maria, Da Costa, Navarrette; Garcia, Sironen, Partington

Interchanges: Sims, Satae, Dezaria, Balmforth

Sin-bin: Sironen (31 mins)

Referee: Aaron Moore.