Salford Red Devils v Huddersfield Giants: Time to turn performances into wins, says Ian Watson

The Giants spent the entire 2022 season in the top four but find themselves playing catch-up this year.

After sitting out round one, Huddersfield have lost three of their first five games, all on home soil.

Watson was encouraged by the way his team performed in the narrow defeats to Wigan Warriors and St Helens but has stressed the need to get some points on the board, starting at Salford Red Devils on Sunday.

"We can't put up two performances against two of the best teams in the competition who were both at full strength and then start to lose these games," said the Giants boss.

"We need to keep building. As long as we do that, I'll know that we're going in the right direction. I think everyone could see that from those last two games and the two we won before.

"This one is a big one for us. They are probably going to be competing up at the top end of the table as well so it's going to be another big game.

"What we've got to do is pick up some wins in the next few weeks to put ourselves in a good position so when we do get people like Theo (Fages), Joe Greenwood and all those guys back and firing, we can go at it at the back end of the season."

Huddersfield had the look of title contenders for large parts of 2022 before falling away towards the end, culminating in a painful home loss to Salford in the play-offs.

Watson has not forgotten that day, or the defeat on their last visit to the AJ Bell Stadium in August.

"We probably owe them a couple," he said. "They got us twice at the back end of last year.

"They got a great start on us at Salford, like we did to them at Magic, and in the play-off game they were too good and their big players stood up on the day.

"They're a really good team. They've built over the last couple of years.

"They're pretty consistent and keep the same spine all the time, which obviously massively helps. If you have a healthy spine, you generally do pretty well on the back of that.

"They play a good brand of football and are really, really competitive."