Huddersfield Giants v Catalans Dragons: Jim Lenihan urges Giants to keep their foot on the gas
HAVING stopped the losing slump with two straight wins, Huddersfield Giants head coach Jim Lenihan said his team’s biggest challenge now was not to “fall in love” with themselves.
Hull FC may have restored the cushion between themselves and Super League’s bottom club to four points with Thursday night’s impressive win at St Helens, but there is plenty of grounds for optimism at the ACCU Stadium ahead of Saturday’s visit from Catalans Dragons.
Lenihan – installed as permanent successor to Luke Robinson back in May – has done it tough in the first few months of his tenure, losing his first nine games in charge. But a hard-fought 24-22 win at York Knights two weeks ago was backed up with a 22-16 triumph at home to the Black and Whites last time out.
Understandably, the mood is buoyant in the Giants’ camp and, with six games remaining the hope is they can maintain their turnaround in form and avoid being lumbered with the wooden spoon.
Lenihan is encouraged by the improvement he has seen in his players’ physicality but, more importantly, their willingness to change the way they play the game and ability to adapt to his approach.
“Mentally, we're changing the way of what we value,” said the Australian.
“And how we want to play the game is evolving mentally, it's evolving physically.
“On top of that, we're changing the way we put our systems in place. Our attacking systems and defensive systems have been adjusted as well.
“All this has been done on the run. It would have been nice to do it over a pre-season and we’ll get that opportunity in another six or seven weeks where the boys get a break and we can then get deeper into what we're changing.
“The amount of changes that we've made over the last eight weeks has been phenomenal - not just physically but also the mental (aspect) and the game style. There's a lot of positivity around the place at the moment.”
Lenihan, who may have half-back Adam Clune and centre Sam Halsall back to face Catalans, added: “Our biggest job now is not falling in love with ourselves and feeling like we've done enough. We've got to keep chasing and hunting for more.
“We can't be satisfied with (just being) consistent. Football's not a game that's meant to be played comfortably. We've got to keep chasing the way we do stuff and really go after it.”