Reality check is timely as Griffin faces former club

Would we see Grand Final regulars and newly-crowned World Club Challenge victors Leeds Rhinos continuing their domination?

Or would the perennially threatening Huddersfield Giants be finally ready to arrive as the real deal and – 50 years after their last league triumph – show they are ready for coronation?

However, as it turns out, all the expected fervour surrounding this evening’s Headingley Carnegie encounter has been dampened, and not just because of dramatic events unfolding at crisis-torn Bradford.

Both Leeds and Huddersfield suffered shock defeats last weekend to shatter their impressive openings to the campaign, meaning tonight is more about basic redemption than displaying any prospective title credentials.

The champions’ 46-6 hammering at St Helens was only their second defeat of the year, yet utterly emphatic, while Huddersfield conceded a similar points total at Hull KR after squandering an 18-6 advantage.

It, too, was just a second reverse but perhaps an early sign of the inconsistency which has hampered their recent bids to break into the elite bracket, not least when they were knocked out of last season’s play-offs at home to tonight’s opponents.

Someone au fait with both camps is Leeds prop Darrell Griffin, who was transferred from Huddersfield last October and now meets his old colleagues for the first time since.

He believes little should be read into either result – after all, four of the top five lost last weekend – and expects a typically thunderous derby this evening.

“With that result we had we just want to get straight back on the horse and, with it being my former club, it all adds a little bit more, too,” Griffin told the Yorkshire Post.

“I came here to win trophies and did so in only my third game when we lifted the World Club Challenge.

“That’s a big part of the boxes I wanted to tick. It’s the first time I’ve won anything major.

“But Huddersfield have always had potential too and been there or thereabouts.

“They’ve just been unfortunate. Last year we seemed to run out of steam and the year before it was down to injuries to some really key players. They’ve started off great this time, though, and have only lost twice themselves.

“I’m delighted for the club and the boys that they’re doing so well now, but we don’t want any more of that on Friday.”

It would be richly ironic if Griffin departed Huddersfield just at the time they began to deliver on their undoubted promise.

The hard-running prop had spent five years at the Galpharm, helping progress them into one of the most dangerous sides in the competition.

It did, then, come as a shock to many when Giants chief Nathan Brown – “one of the world’s best coaches” – allowed him to leave with a year remaining on his deal.

Griffin, 30, admitted: “I was very surprised. I’d just come off the Four Nations tour with England and was playing pretty well at the start of the year.

“When a phone call came from my agent I thought it’d be the other way and they’d be wanting me to extend.

“I had a great five years there but that chapter is done now and I’m really looking forward to the next three here with Leeds.”

Brown perhaps felt able to offload the international given the dynamic Larne Patrick’s growing quality, while he has also taken a punt on Featherstone Rovers’ Tony Tonks who finally debuted at Craven Park.

Regardless of the reasons, Griffin – who turned down Wigan and reneged on a gentlemen’s handshake with St Helens to join Leeds – is thriving in his new surroundings.

“I’m really settling in now and learning how the boys play,” he added. “It’s totally different to the style of Huddersfield. There, it wasn’t exactly set out for you, but you did know what your role was and roughly where you should be at all times.

“At Leeds, we play more off the cuff and I’m still getting use to that aspect of always being ready to put a pass in.

“The more I play among the boys though the more I’m getting used to it.”

Leeds’s customary vibrancy was clearly missing when they were torn apart by St Helens on Sunday night but there has been no panic at the champions.

“We just caught Saints on a red-hot day,” he said.

“They played really well and we were massively under the level we expect of ourselves and everyone was really disappointed.

“We don’t want that sort of thing happening again, but the beauty of this Huddersfield game is it’s only five days since Saints.

“All our skills sessions since have been really sharp and we can’t wait to get back out there.”

There will be no red dye in their hair tonight, no legacy of their charitable efforts for Sport Relief which television pundit Mike Stephenson bizarrely claimed contributed to Leeds’s lack of cohesion.

“He probably needs to realise there’s bigger things in life than rugby league,” said Griffin who, last April, was part of the first Huddersfield side to famously win at Leeds in more than half a century.

“We did it to raise money and the profile of a very good charity and we did that.

“If we hadn’t have dyed our hair, that scoreline wouldn’t have changed one bit.”

On Huddersfield, Griffin concluded: “They have the potential to get to one, if not both, finals.

“When I first started there, the crowds were pretty poor and off the field not too much was happening.

“But it’s all developing now on and off the park and all they need to do is find some consistency.

“If they can stay relatively injury-free they’ll be challenging at the end of the year, just as I’d like to think we will be too.”