Giants coach says London trip helped Super Bowl preparation

By Larry Fine

PHOENIX, Arizona (Reuters) - New York coach Tom Coughlin said the Giants' trip to London during the regular season helped his team to cope with the frenzied run-up to Sunday's Super Bowl clash against the New England Patriots.

The Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10 at Wembley Stadium on October 28 in the first NFL game played outside North America.

"We believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason," Coughlin told reporters on Friday. "That was a trip that I think a lot of our young players can use in leading up to a media extravaganza like this."

Nearly 4,800 media credentials, a record for the NFL championship game, have been approved for Super Bowl week.

New York, which caught fire at the end of the season to storm through the playoffs with three successive road wins, have just three players on their roster with Super Bowl experience compared to 20 for New England.

"There was a lot of media coverage in London for our game with Miami. There was an adjustment in schedule," Coughlin said. "We had to make adjustments to accommodate the media, the utilization of the fields."

"We tried to build our practice times around our meeting times to accommodate also the fact that we had flown all night and needed some rest when we first got there.

"There were a lot of adjustments and those adjustments were made, and I thought our team reacted well to it.