SAINTS fell to their fourth defeat in a row, losing 28-22 to Huddersfield to leave them looking anxiously over their shoulders for the top four semi spot.

There was no lack of effort - even if there were a couple of glaring defensive misses - but they were a touch anxious at times, even rudderless, and that stymied their attack.

For large parts of the first half they they were far too predicatable with the ball, and that handed the initiative back to the visitors.

As it was Saints rallied and pushed their noses in front in the second half but lacked the composure and leadership needed to close the game out.

So once again, another game that a team with genuine designs on retaining the title should have won was left to fall away.

It leaves Saints in quite a hole to dig themselves out of - one they must start at Leeds in a fortnight's time.

Kyle Amor, recalled to the side after being dropped last week, opened the scoring when his powerful leg-pumping burst got him over the whitewash.

And for the opening 10 minutes Saints did look as though they had plenty of purpose.

Alas, a bad defensive miss from the scrum saw former Saint Jamie Ellis step his way under the sticks in a move from the scrum and when Leroy Cudjoe scattered Adam Swift from a penalty tap Giants were knocking on the door again.

And it soon opened with Ukuma Ta'ai taking Danny Brough's pass for a far too easy a score.

Brough kicked both goals and then added a penalty to make it 14-6.

Saints could not get into any rhythm and the lack of noise from the crowd reflected the mood.

Tommy Makinson, back on the flank after a 10-week absence, narrowly failed to get his hands to Adam Quinlan's bouncing kick to the corner.

With the attack flat, Saints adopted the conservstive approach up the middle and off the back of a succession of seven penalties, which led to Michael Lawrence being sin-binned, it finally produced a try.

Hooker James Roby sneaked over from dummy half, which with Walsh's goal, cut the deficit to 14-12.

Saints hit a purple patch, and satrted strongly when Alex Walmsley bust the line iopen and had Quinlan not been forced to juggle it would have been another six-pointer.

However, the introduction of Jordan Turner at loose forward gave Saints some badly needed extra spark in the middle.

For a spell Saints began to ask real questions and when Walsh tossed it wide Mark Percival was athe ball wide for Tommy Makinson to cross in the corner.

Then Makinson tapped a cross kick back for Percival to flick inside for Travis Burns to score.

Walsh kicked a penalty when Brough put a restart out on the full to nudge Saints in front, but in the last quarter the game went away from Saints.

On the hour mark Giants engineered the opportunity for wing Jermaine McGilvary to see off three tacklers in the corner to score.

Heads dropped again.

Then on the other wing Aaron Murphy took a fine Joe Wardle pass to go over.

It did not end there, and the towel was not thrown in and Saints had a late Roby tried disallowed for a knock on.

Although it was a huge improvement on last week, Saints will be scratching around now needing to pull some big wins out of the hat or fail to make the knockout stages.