But it was difficult to escape the impression that the former Bradford and England back felt his National League One part timers, who only slipped out of contention in the last eight minutes of an exciting game, could have gone even closer to springing a shock on their derby rivals.

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"In my opinion, there wasn't a lot of difference between the two sides," said Calland, fresh from penning a deal that will keep him in the Shay hotseat until the end of 2009.

"I was certainly pleased by the effort, but our last tackle plays let us down badly, particularly when they had the ball.

"That is giving a false impression of where we are at.

"Huddersfield completed at 95 per cent in the second half, so I went into the dressing room straight after the game and told the boys to get their heads up.

"They have played against a Super League side turning in that kind of stat and we have still been in with a shout until right at the end.

"I think it is a big confidence booster, because we have proved we can compete.

"If we had controlled the ball just that little bit better, it would have been a hell of a close contest.

"But the areas where we fell down are fixable, and we will work on doing that this week."

Fax endured a nightmare start, going 12-0 down inside five minutes to tries by Ryan Hudson, Fax born half back Luke Robinson and a couple of Chris Thorman conversions.

But with playmakers Graham Holroyd and Sean Penkywicz, both massive injury doubts before the game, calling the shots, Fax roared back and closed to within eight points deep in the final quarter.

"The thing with this team is that we always have a try or a line break in us, so I knew we would come back at them," said Calland, who confirmed he would be examining a disallowed Shad Royston touchdown, which would have made it 22-18 early in the second period with particular interest.

"Graham came up with a couple of handling errors early on, but it's the sign of a good player when you can do that and recover.

"He put on some wonderful kicks and some good plays as well.

"We were unfortunate on a couple of occasions and there are a few incidents I will be looking at on video.

"There were a few close calls. Overall though, the fans really got behind us and we did ourselves proud.

"That kind of atmosphere makes a massive difference because it lifts all the players.

"They were all buzzing."

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