Danny Brough helped Huddersfield Giants make a perfect start to their Betfred Super 8s campaign with a 36-6 derby victory over Wakefield Trinity.
Scrum-half Brough scored an early try and booted six goals, including two penalties, for a 16-point haul against one of his old clubs.
Chris Chester's visitors show no sign of ending their wretched form at this stage of the campaign, having lost all seven Super 8s fixtures in 2016.
Huddersfield only avoided an end-of-season relegation battle in the penultimate game of the regular season but they started superbly in an attempt to gain an unlikely semi-final play-off place, scoring three tries in the opening 27 minutes.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Giants won the coin toss and Cudjoe has opted we play right to left dugout wise in the first half. Wakefield will kick-off. <a href="https://t.co/ufM9De4PWr">pic.twitter.com/ufM9De4PWr</a></p>— Huddersfield Giants (@Giantsrl) <a href="https://twitter.com/Giantsrl/status/893541569063772163">August 4, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Brough was tormentor in chief, starting and finishing the move for the game's opening try.
The veteran half-back combined with full-back Jordan Rankin to send in winger Darnell McIntosh and Ryan Hinchcliffe raced 30 metres to score the Giants' third.
Sam Williams touched down in a rare Wakefield attack but Trinity never threatened to close the deficit and Huddersfield duly found a second wind.
England internationals Leroy Cudjoe and Jermaine McGillvary exploited weaknesses down the Trinity left flank to touch down and in the final minute Daniel Smith rubbed salt in the wounds.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">LISTEN: Chris Chester's post match press conference. <a href="https://t.co/rQnWkMw23Q">https://t.co/rQnWkMw23Q</a> via <a href="https://twitter.com/audioBoom">@audioBoom</a></p>— Wakefield Trinity (@WTrinityRL) <a href="https://twitter.com/WTrinityRL/status/893587949295730688">August 4, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Wakefield head coach Chris Chester vowed to wield the axe on some of his under-performing players after the game.
Trinity were eager to make amends for their slump of seven straight defeats in last year's Super 8s but it was a familiar story as they were torn apart.
A deflated Chester hit out at the visitors' lack of effort as they crashed to a second heavy defeat in succession, following on from their 41-16 loss to St Helens two weeks ago to miss out on a top four place at the end of the regular season.
Chester said: "I have seen some things on a rugby field I have not seen for long, long time. I can cop getting beaten by a better side, but I can't cop getting beaten on desire and effort.
"That's two games on the bounce, probably our two most important games, we have fallen a long way short.
"We are in a bit of a hole and I can't put my finger on it. I wouldn't expect my under-16s or 19s teams to make some of those kind of errors out there.
"We are killing ourselves. There are a few blokes out on that field who won't be playing next week. Yet we are still only two points out of the top four, crazy."
Giants boss Rick Stone said: "It was a good start. Wakey are going to say they didn't play their best.
"And that's understandable. But our job was to get the Super 8s off to a winning start, especially at home.
"It was important for us, with a bit of momentum we have carried into this Super 8's, to show we can compete against the top eight. Hopefully we are going to have a bit of a crack at it.
"There were different times we weren't great. But if you look at the score line you would walk away thinking we were the dominant side on the night.
"We managed the ball and made fewer errors than the opposition which helped us with extra juice and field position.
"You are never going to be perfect all the time but overall our intent, desire and some of our execution was good."
