Giants ready for ‘season to end’ after tough run

SIMON Woolford admits the Giants are ready for the Super League season to end.

Huddersfield finish their campaign on Saturday when they visit Catalans Dragons in their final Super 8s match.

It brings to an end a recent spell which has seen Woolford have to cope with a string of injuries to players, which eventually scuppered the side’s chances of reaching the play-offs.

So much so, he struggled to field a full 19-man squad for the final home match of the campaign against Wigan last Thursday night.

Despite that, they were in the game right until the death, with the Warriors eventually running out 13-6 winners.

And the Giants head coach admits that things have been tough since the 42-16 home defeat to Wakefield Trinity at the end of August.

“We are all ready for the season to end,” said Woolford. “The Wakefield game took a lot out of us mentally and we lost three or four players from that game – and we have lost a few more since then.

“It is rollercoaster, rugby league. We go into the Wakefield game on top of the world with only a couple of guys not available for selection. A few weeks later we are struggling to pick 19 players to make up the squad.

“The boys are tired. But their effort against Wigan was fantastic. It was better than last week (the 44-12 loss to Castlefield Tigers). We were a wounded animal. The change in personnel from four weeks ago – we had both wingers, both centres and both back rowers not playing.

“And all things considered I thought our effort was fantastic.

“At half-time we spoke about staying in the fight and not having a fall-off like we did against Cas and Wakefield. To the boys’ credit, they dug in.

“There were a lot of good things there defensively. Wigan put the game out of reach with a couple of minutes to go, so there are plenty of positives to take from that.

“Our attack was well down on where it was a few weeks ago. But with minutes to go we were still in with a chance of winning the game, so it is not all doom and gloom. It is a lot easier to take than in the second half against Cas.”

And Woolford admits it was a disappointment the Giants weren’t able to give Ryan Hinchcliffe a winning sendoff in his last game at the John Smith’s Stadium before returning to Australia.

“He is a leader,” said Woolford. “That is something we need and we are losing one.

“He nearly scored late on in the game and that would have been a real buzz for him.

“We spoke about it before the match – giving him a send off with a win. We couldn’t do that, but we did in terms of effort. We just weren’t good enough on the night.”