PICTURE GALLERY: Impressive Featherstone Rovers cut down Giants in physical warm-up match

James Ford’s men continued their excellent build-up to the Betfred Championship season as they ran in four tries and dominated large periods of the game against their higher ranked opponents.

Ford picked a strong 22-man squad and will have been impressed with the attitude shown as players were keen to take their chance to catch the eye of the head coach with competition for places hotting up within the team.

Strong defence was initially needed as Elliot Wallace raced for the line only to put a foot in touch following Celeb Aekins’ tackle.

But Rovers went on the attack and opened the scoring when Ben Reynolds and Calum Turner sent Bailey O’Connor clear. Reynolds was back up in support and sent Connor Jones over.

Reynolds converted and added another after his half-back partner Zach Herring showed good footwork to get over the line.

More pressure followed with the Giants down to 12 men for 10 minutes after Jack Murchie was sin-binned for a late tackle, but it remained 12-0 to half-time.

The competitive nature of the friendly showed again after the break as Herring was yellow carded along with Huddersfield’s Oliver Wilson after a confrontation between the two that led to more players getting involved.

The visitors scored what was to be their only try when they worked space down their left for Darius Carter to dive over in the corner.

Joe Greenwood then went close, but Featherstone took charge again with a smart Reynolds pass sending Josh Hardcastle through a gap and Jonny Openshaw backing up to score underneath the sticks.

And they rounded off their victory with a late try as good work by Turner and Gareth Gale gave them good field position then Herring sent fellow Australian Toby Boothroyd charging through a gap to score.

Reynolds landed his fourth conversion from wide out and Rovers had a 24-4 victory to celebrate. The win will give them confidence for the league and cup matches to come and the physicality of the contest was just what they were looking for.