Keep Kruising with confidence

KRUISE Leeming should take confidence from his England Knights call-up even though he hasn’t made the Huddersfield Giants squad against Wakefield Trinity.

That’s the view of Giants head coach Simon Woolford, who is keeping a close eye on 22-year-old hooker Leeming despite Adam O’Brien and Ryan Hinchcliffe being commanding choices at the moment.

“Kruise deserves his place in the England Knights squad and (with us) he is a bit of a victim of circumstances,” explained Woolford, looking to finish the regular Super League season with a John Smith’s win against Chris Chester’s side.

“We had a tough loss against Hull KR and then he had a little injury for a couple of weeks.

“He is available now, but the rotation with Adam O’Brien and Hinchy, giving him a spell at No9, worked for us, so there is no real reason to change that at the moment.

“But Kruise’s attitude has been great, he has been training hard and he will get his opportunity again before the year is finished.”

Woolford, who has added Jake Wardle to the squad in place of the Castleford-linked Jake Mamo, feels the 25-year-old O’Brien is in sparkling form in the hooker position which the head coach knows so well from his own playing days.

“With the added responsibility and added game time, I think he (O’Brien) has found some real consistency in his game,” explained Woolford.

“His defence is improving all the time, his service out of dummy half - if you look at some of our tries over the past three weeks - is outstanding and it’s something which has really improved over the last six weeks.

“He has worked hard on that. Kruise is the same, his passing out of dummy half has improved out of sight too.

“At the moment, though, Adam is playing big minutes and handling it and coming up with a lot of quality in his work, so there is no reason to change that at the moment.” ■■Huddersfield Giants utility-back Sam Wood has joined Championship side Halifax on loan for the remainder of the season ahead of the upcoming Qualifiers.

Giants MD Richard Thewlis says the club believe the move will be “greatly beneficial to Sam’s development and he’ll play a series of crucial matches for Halifax”.