GIANTS COACH BRINGS IN EXPERT FROM DOWN UNDER TO HELP WITH SQUAD DYNAMICS Woolford’s big plan to instil spirit of success
AS HUDDERSFIELD Giants begin to prepare for 2019 under Simon Woolford, it is clear the Australian has had a huge impact within West Yorkshire and has begun to lay the foundations for a successful future for the club.
One element he has made a priority to improve is the team spirit and dynamics within the squad.
Giants have brought in some expertise from Australia to help them during pre-season.
Woolford said: “We’ve got a leadership guy over from Australia for a week, Kurt Wrigley.
“He’s been an assistant coach in Australia for 20 years. He was a member of the South Sydney Rabbitohs coaching team when they won the competition in 2014.”
Wrigley comes to Giants, albeit for just a week, with an experience of winning trophies and brings with him a fresh perspective on how Giants should approach the 2019 season.
Wrigley’s influence will help improve the squad harmony as well as give players an extra motivation to impress the coaches before Woolford’s first squad selection ahead of their season opener with Salford on Feburay 1.
This theme of making sure the Giants are ‘buying into’ what Woolford is trying to achieve at Huddersfield has been very prominent throughout his short reign as head coach.
However, it’s not just the players that Woolford envisions benefitting from Wrigley. He said: “So he’s here for a week. He’s going to spend four or five sessions with the guys and a couple with the staff and even more of a bonus is that he has jumped in and run a couple of drills for us.” Wrigley comes to Huddersfield with only a couple of years’ experience of this new role, however, his substantial coaching CV is available for all to see and it is clear the great reputation Wrigley still has as a man of influence within Rugby League. “He’s a very experienced coach who had opportunities to come to the UK and be a head coach but family reasons meant it just wasn’t
A big focus for us this year is more on the dynamics of the group
the right time for him,” said Woolford. “And now he’s branched out into a different field and we’re going to use him up for the week.”
Wrigley has also garnered great praise from ex-Giants head coach Nathan Brown, who described Wrigley as having the most all-round skillset of any coach he has worked with.
This new focus on team spirit and dynamics may come as a surprise to some, but for Woolford it was clear in his mind that this is an essential step in helping Huddersfield achieve their goals in 2019 and beyond.
He said: “A big focus for us this year is more on the dynamics of the group.
“Making sure, you know, we’re connected, we’re willing to work hard for each other and we feel that was an area, in the past, that Giants have let themselves down and we’re looking to rectify that.”