Chase on to reach Old Trafford, but pursuit of Rangi not so quick

Obviously, recruitment is an ongoing process and you can’t take your eye of the ball. It’s been difficult to balance but you can’t get ahead of yourself.

Next year we’ll be good. We’ll have a good team and a rosta which I’ll have had a big input into as well.

But this season we can still do something special. A lot of the guys here now will be there in 2013 too so there’s no reason why we can’t do something special in these next few weeks.

Finishing sixth, we’ve got Huddersfield in this opening round of the play-offs but Leeds Rhinos showed last year you can do it from the bottom half of the top eight.

What they did was get on top of their game each week and that’s what we need to do. The standard of rugby league is going to go to another level now and will continue to go to another level each week through the semis.

You need to bring your best game; ninety per cent is not good enough. It has to be 100 per cent to progress.

Any side in the top eight can beat any other on any given day but that’s only when you’re on top of your own game.

We bottomed out against Widnes about a month ago but have put two very, very good back-to-back performances together since.

At Bradford we only conceded one try and scored a fair few in a 70-6 win and then it built a lot of confidence to only concede two tries against a Castleford side last week who were throwing everything at us.

Rangi Chase and his box of tricks and all the offloads made it like a game of touch football at times.

So, defensively, we’re very happy with what we’ve done.

Being at home at the KC is important on Sunday night as well. We set a goal quite a few months ago about trying to nail a home semi to give our fans a bit of a thank you.

Our home record’s good and it’s partly due to them – they support, they sing, they chant and you can’t under-estimate the part they play in it all.

Huddersfield have had a disrupted season through injuries, coaches leaving and other changes but it looks like they finally got on top of their game against Leeds last Sunday.

Danny Brough was exceptional. He’s great to watch in that sort of form. When it comes to stopping him, we just have to defend as a team. When we work hard for each other we’ve shown we can be a very good defensive side.

Earlier in the season we were the best defensive team in Super League for a long time.

We’ve got to get back to that sort of mentality in defence and, only conceding three tries in two weeks, we’re getting there.

It’s going to be a lot tougher against Huddersfield though.

We got Danny Tickle back from injury last week and he put a few demons to rest during a 20 minute spell while hopefully Sam Moa can do the same against the Giants as well on his return.

We’ve had some injuries this year but that’s the game and it’s meant we’ve given seven rookies their debuts.

They’ve all done well and it means we’ll have depth right down to No 27 next season. That’s what top teams have got.

As for the Rangi situation, it’s very complicated and slow moving. I don’t know how much longer it can go on for. We’re going to have to get a result very shortly for both clubs – Cas and us. We’ll see where it finishes.

Interview by Dave Craven