How Huddersfield Giants are learning to adjust to life after Danny Brough

HUDDERSFIELD Giants head coach Simon Woolford admits it has taken time to adjust to life without Danny Brough, but things are certainly improving.
Huddersfield Giants head coach Simon Woolford.
 Picture: Jonathan GawthorpeHuddersfield Giants head coach Simon Woolford.
 Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe
Huddersfield Giants head coach Simon Woolford. Picture: Jonathan Gawthorpe

They face their former captain tonight for the first time in Super League since the experienced scrum-half’s off-season switch to Wakefield Trinity.

Brough’s move came as a surprise to many and Huddersfield did initially struggle without his guidance on the field.

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However, they make the trip to Belle Vue in search of a third successive win and Woolford said: “It was always going to take some adjustment.

“But what stalled it a little bit was having (stand-off) Lee Gaskell out (injured).

“We lost Jordan Rankin (swapped to Castleford in exchange for Joe Wardle the week before), and Oliver Russell was out on loan, so all of a sudden we went from having plenty of halves to none in round one, which was disappointing and that hurt us.

“I think everyone will agree that our halves combination is getting better every week, and we’ve had a couple of really good games over the last month.

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“Our kicking game has been fantastic. Without Brough here, Gaskell has taken more responsibility.

MOVED ON: Danny Brough left Huddersfield Giants in the close season to rejoin Wakefield Trinity. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.comMOVED ON: Danny Brough left Huddersfield Giants in the close season to rejoin Wakefield Trinity. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com
MOVED ON: Danny Brough left Huddersfield Giants in the close season to rejoin Wakefield Trinity. Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWpix.com

“Outside of that we’ve got Matt Frawley, Adam O’Brien, Kruise Leeming and even Jordan Turner who’ve done some kicking.

“We’ve been able to mix it up and share the workload.

“Sometimes we’ve got that right, but other times we haven’t, so again it’s just something that we’ll keep working on.”

After wins over Hull KR and London Broncos, Huddersfield have pulled off bottom and will draw level with Wakefield in fourth if they prosper tonight.

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Woolford said: “They’re a big side and hard to beat at home.

“Obviously Danny Brough has got a fantastic kicking game and he’s putting teams under a lot of pressure at the moment.

“David Fifita and Pauli Pauli are a handful, so they’re going to present challenges for us.

“But if we can bottle the intent and mindset we had in defence last week, and the week before for that matter, I think we’re heading in the right direction.

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“London scored 22 points on Sunday, but a couple of those tries were just careless.

“Generally I think our intent and our attitude towards our defence has been fantastic, but that needs to improve, particularly against Wakefield.

“They were down 20 points against Warrington with 15 minutes to go, but nearly stole that game, so they’re definitely a team that can score plenty of points and do a lot of offloading.

“It’ll be a night where we’ll need to roll the sleeves up.”