Huddersfield Giants v St Helens: Turner hoping Giants can learn lesson from Saints

This will not necessarily help his current side as they prepare to face the Super League leaders in tomorrow night’s Coral Challenge Cup sixth-round tie, but he believes there are still valuable lessons to learn.

For example, Turner was part of the Saints team that won the 2014 Grand Final when a lot of people had doubted their credentials even to be challengers.

“It was a fantastic year and we managed to win the comp’ despite going through a lot of adversity,” he recalled.

“I was named at 13 back then, but was playing in the halves – it was just Nathan Brown’s way of doing things.

“We had loads of injuries that year – similar to us at Huddersfield now – and it just proved to me you don’t need a team of superstars to succeed.

“If you try hard and work together as a unit you can do pretty special things.

“We can learn plenty from that at Huddersfield and hopefully go on a run in the Challenge Cup starting on Sunday.”

While Saints are four points clear at the top, Giants have slipped to ninth following back-to-back defeats, including a second frustrating one-point loss this term to Wakefield Trinity.

But the return of some key players, not least former Saints stand-off Lee Gaskell, as well as Joe Wardle and Matty English, should bolster their hopes of causing a shock tomorrow.

Gaskell has missed their last four games and, given the 28-year-old’s growing importance to Simon Woolford’s side, it is perhaps no surprise they went on to lose three of them.

Former Hull FC star Turner, 30, said: “Gasky has been getting real frustrated by the little niggles he’s had. One of the reasons for that frustration is that he was playing exceptionally well beforehand and he’s coming into his prime years.

“He is so important to us and he’s wanted to be out there doing even better. He’ll be desperate to show that on Sunday and get one over his hometown team, too.”

Huddersfield will certainly need all the help they can get to silence a Saints side that has won 13 of their 14 games so far.

Many of Turner’s team-mates from five years ago remain, not least the irrepressible England hooker James Roby, still going strong approaching his 34th birthday.

He added: “They do have great players.

“Robes has shown how good he is by still proving to be so important to Saints after all these years.

“Jonny Lomax is another, then there’s Tommy Makinson and they’ve quality youngsters coming through, too.

“But we want to really push hard for Wembley. When you look at (chairman) Ken Davy and the money he has pumped in and invested here he deserves to get back there. It’s been 66 years since Huddersfield last won the Challenge Cup.”

Saints make just one change with Aaron Smith replacing Jack Welsby in their 19-man squad.