Everything Huddersfield Giants boss Ian Watson said on pressure, underperforming individuals and 'cut-throat' decisions

The 48-6 thumping at St James’ Park leaves the highly fancied Giants six points adrift of the play-off positions at the halfway mark.

Here is everything Huddersfield head coach Ian Watson said in the aftermath of a chastening Magic Weekend experience.

Assessment of the performance

I think in the first half the scoreline kind of flattered them a little bit. The sin-binning of Luke Yates enabled them to get out to 16-6 but I still felt we were in the game at half-time.

But the (third) try seemed to take more out of us than what we thought. The changing room was quite flat and wasn't like the players felt they were in the game, whereas I felt we were in the game at that point.

We came out for the start of the second half, the first defensive set was good but then we got shut down coming out of yardage and all of a sudden, the momentum just went completely. They played on the front foot on the back end of that and picked us off too easily on our left edge, which was way, way off.

The most disappointing thing was how poor our left edge was defensively. You can say they've got some great players and executed really, really well and it was smart by them – but we weren't good enough in that area. We basically spent the rest of the second half doing a hell of a lot of defending.

Is a flat changing room at half-time a worry?

When you were a kid you would have died to play in a game like this at a venue like this against a team like St Helens where you can go and compete and challenge yourselves against the best players in the competition. They're the games you want to play in, aren't they?

It seemed strange that all of a sudden we came in quite flat at half-time. I can't put my finger on that because last week our attitude to go and defend was outstanding.

But that's probably been us – we've been real inconsistent in what we've done. We preach about doing certain things and maybe little bits come down to personnel.

Potentially next week we might have our main spine out which will help. Hopefully they can stay fit and we can start building a little bit. If you keep changing and swapping players, it's tough.

We've tried to get a settled team but certain individuals haven't performed and have fallen below certain standards. There are other players waiting in the wings to come in and perform. Either they've come in and haven't performed or made silly errors and then you've had to change them on the back end of that, or you give them another game to fix it up and they still haven't done it.

There are lots of things we can look at, blame and make excuses but it is what it is. We need to make sure we improve going forward from here. Bringing a few players back will help.

Inability to turn the tide and accusations of defensive turnstiles

To be fair, individual players do that as well. You look at Joe Greenwood who split his head badly and has got a bad concussion. He's somebody who helps us win ruck control.

You look at the Salford game when he came on and that turns the tide because he wins ruck control. Last week against Castleford he was very good with his ruck D stuff as well.

We can't just rely on Joe. Everyone has got to be on the same page but at the moment, we have inconsistencies – one week they'll be really good at it and the week after they'll not be so good at it. Then you're getting put into a game where you're defending on goal line – and we've shown an inability to defend on goal line.

Is it too strong to question the character?

As a group, yeah. There might be individuals that look at themselves and think that they're way, way off. They might think they've been doing alright but as you can see today, there are some individuals that are way off the mark at the moment.

It's up to them to get better or for us to replace them and make a choice on whether they're right for us going forward.

Our teams have generally been pretty good defensively. You look where they were last year and the games we've won this year, it's all stemmed off the back of defence. That wasn't stemmed off defence today.

Do you have to be cut-throat now in terms of shuffling your pack and tough conversations, dropping players?

You always go through little bits as a coach and it's not nice. You don't want to have to drop players; you want them to do their own job well and share in their happy times.

But unfortunately, sometimes players go through a little bit of a dip whether it's through form or something that's happening away from rugby.

It's a cut-throat business and you have to make those calls on people.

It's the heaviest defeat this year – is it the low point of the season?

We've had two games – Hull KR and Leigh – where we did things that we spoke about not doing and they scored off everything we said not to do.

This game here, Saints have just got a ruck speed that has gone ridiculous and they've ripped our left edge apart.

I can see how smart Saints have played but those other defeats were through our own dumbness. They were better at executing, better at building momentum and just played the game better. I love the way they play and that's why they're the best team in the competition.

Was that the best you've seen them play this year?

Probably – and this environment has probably brought it out of them. But we should know that's coming.

The first 10 minutes we looked pretty much in control and I thought we were in the game. The sin-binning didn't help us and then they scored that try and from there Saints didn't look back.

They're used to environments like this and have played in big games. They've won World Club Challenges and Grand Finals so they're no Mickey Mouse team; they're a top, top team with top individual players.

The one thing they do is turn up with a level of effort and desire week in, week out to be winners. That's the thing some of our players need to learn.

It doesn't just happen because you talk about it and want to; you've got to put in the hard work like they've done.

Are you still optimistic about the top six?

I'm fine with our group. I knew it would be a sticky period because of some of the stuff we've faced but hopefully we're coming through that now so we should see something different.

The Castleford game was back to more like our identity but it wasn't out there again today. It was nowhere near that level where it needs to be.

Maybe that's because we're not at that level at the moment, at a St Helens level. We need to build back into what we are in getting some major players back into our team who help you get that process-driven style.

It's not out of the realms. You look at Hull at the start of the year losing seven on the bounce and they’ve started to get some wins. You look at Leeds last year where they were struggling and get to a Grand Final.

You never have an attitude to give in because you never know what will happen – but you've got to give yourselves a chance by doing the right things and by working hard to do that.

The players are under pressure – do you feel under pressure yourself?

I think there's always pressure. If you don't feel pressure and don't think there's pressure on you, you're in the wrong game.

It doesn't matter where you are in the table. There's pressure on St Helens to win every game because everyone expects them to win the competition. Wakefield are bottom of the table so there's a pressure on them to win games, right? Where is there not pressure?

In this game, there's pressure everywhere. I can't get caught up thinking about pressure; my mentality has to be about how we fix it up and get better.

There's always going to be pressure whether you're doing well or doing poorly. You can't control that and that's for everybody else. You need to stay focused on what you're trying to achieve and what you want to do.

You've hinted at Olly Russell's return and mentioned being cut-throat, the three playmakers that played today are starting players...

Theo (Fages) is, if you want me to be blunt.

He's the starting player?

One hundred per cent he is.

It's up to the other two (Tui Lolohea and Jake Connor) to fight for a place when Olly comes in?

Yep.

Presumably the players know that it's up to them...

They will know. If you didn't see Olly Russell train with us two days ago and the way he trained, there was a little bit of rustiness in there but if you're a half-back or spine player, you're thinking – and we're talking about pressure – 'I need to perform this week because he's coming back'.

Everyone knows how much I love Rusty – how he plays the game and what he does, especially defensively – so if you didn't want to play out here today, you're in the wrong game.

This is what you play for – to play in stadiums like this against the best teams in the competition so you can compete and challenge yourself. If you're not in it for that, I don't know what you're in it for.

Are you disappointed with Jake and Tui individually or as a combination?

We knew we were going to start slow and would have to build in, hence Jake not having a pre-season where we had to get him in the mindset of how we play and how you do things and win things.

Tui was at a World Cup then went away and got married so he came in later as well. They've been fighting to get fit throughout the season – and they are, they're trying, they're doing things.

But it's no good just trying at this level. You've got to be at a certain level all the time if you want to be a St Helens. You have to have a level of responsibility and reputation to deliver the right things.

I'm not just labelling it at them. I just know where our team is at this moment in time. They're both great players but right at this moment in time, our team needs Theo and Olly Russell in that team.