MATT Frawley earned the plaudits on his Huddersfield Giants return as the Betfred Super League strugglers picked up only their second win of the campaign with a 24-16 victory away to Warrington Wolves.
The halfback has endured a torrid time since coming back to these shores from the NRL with Leeds Rhinos ahead of the 2024 season, and rejoined Huddersfield, where he spent the 2019 campaign, on a one-month loan on Wednesday after Adam Clune was ruled out for the season due to a hamstring injury.
Frawley was thrown straight in for his Giants comeback at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday afternoon, and head coach Luke Robinson praised the Australian’s impact in allowing the likes of fellow half Tui Lolohea and fullback George Flanagan the freedom to showcase their attacking skills.
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Second @GiantsRL win of the season 🙌#SuperLeague pic.twitter.com/y0652HUQUL
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) June 21, 2025
“We missed Cluney at the beginning of the year and I said on numerous occasions if he’d have been playing, we’d have won those games with game management,” Robinson told BBC Radio Leeds.
“Tui is one of the best attacking players in the league, George Flanagan is one of the best prospecrs in the league, but we lacked a little bit of direction, and as soon as Cluney was ruled out for the season, [Huddersfield director of rugby] Andy Kelly and everyone at the club acted really quickly to get Frawls in, and said not only for the players but for everyone else that we’re having a good crack at the second half of this season.
“I brought him in for what he is – he’s an organising, experienced half who will allow Tui to play and those other spine players in Flanagan to play, he’ll make those other players better.
“To say it was his first game, I was really pleased with the way it went. I think he’s only had two sessions with us, so I’m really pleased for him and the rest of the team.”
Huddersfield’s win over the eighth-placed Wolves, who are now four points off the Super League play-off places, comes a week after an agonising defeat on the hooter to champions Wigan Warriors.
The Giants are still 11th, but moved two points clear of bottom side Salford Red Devils and Robinson was delighted to see the efforts of his players finally rewarded for the first time since beating Hull FC 12-10 on May 4.
“More than anything else, I’m overjoyed for the players in particular because I don’t think everyone realises how hard they’ve been working,” Robinson said.
“It’s very easy to turn on each other and your team-mates and your coach, or whoever it may be when you’re not winning games.
“They’ve been unbelievably steadfast in their culture, the way they go about training, their hard work, and I’m just really, really pleased for them because we probably should have won about four or five games like that earlier in the season.
“To be a really dominant team…and not come away with the victory would have been soul-destroying, so to actually come on the other side of it now is really pleasing.”