Leroy Cudjoe strikes as Huddersfield Giants crush Crusaders' dream

Fairytales are not supposed to end like this. The Crusaders, who were a laughing stock in Bridgend in their debut Super League season but have been transformed into a credible force this year by the move to Wrexham and the appointment of Brian Noble as coach, marked their unlikely play-off debut with an heroic effort, only to be thwarted by a try three minutes from time. They had led from the 35th minute to the 72nd, when Huddersfield took the lead for the first time immediately after the Crusaders forward Jordan James had been sent to the sin bin. Even then they pulled level at 12-12 with Clinton Schifcofske's fourth goal. But the Giants killed the dream when Danny Brough pounced on a loose ball on the halfway line and sent Leroy Cudjoe sprinting to the posts. They now move on to the second round of the play-offs, when they will definitely be away but will not know their opponents until after qualifying game between Wigan and Leeds. For the Crusaders, the end of a memorable season marks the start of another period of uncertainty, as Noble has already signalled his intent to leave for Australia. But this performance, and the noisy support of around 1,000 recent rugby league converts who had travelled across the Pennines from North Wales, underlined the potential that has been unearthed by accident this year. Huddersfield looked jittery, and the Crusaders comparatively composed, from the start. But it was not until the 35th minute that a tense deadlock was broken, as the Welsh club's Australian scrum-half Rhys Hanbury intercepted a poor pass from Brough, and held off the Huddersfield cover in a 45-metre race for the line. Schifcofske converted, then kicked a penalty three minutes later after David Hodgson had fumbled a bomb, and the Crusaders had an 8-0 half-time lead. It was cut to two points by a super individual try from the Giants' scrum-half Luke Robinson four minutes into the second half. He was operating from hooker having switched with Brough, to pick up from acting-half and sidestep a big forward in the Crusaders' first line of defence, then flummox Schifcofske with a dummy. There was no further scoring for another 18 minutes of an increasingly absorbing battle. Then Jarrod Sammut, the stand-off whose dreadlocked hair and extravagant moustache make him look like an extra from Pirates of the Caribbean, milked a penalty from Stephen Wild, allowing Schifcofske to kick his third goal and nudge the Crusaders a further two points ahead. But James then undermined Crusaders' chances of hanging on with a moment of madness, preventing Huddersfield from taking a quick tap penalty after a poor kick by Sammut. Within two minutes of his departure, a brilliant offload by the Oxford-born prop Darrell Griffin sent Larne Patrick over. But that was only the start of the drama.