Now that Huddersfield Giants have sacked head coach Ian Watson, they’ll now be searching for a new person to fill the role.
The club had been really struggling recently, losing eight of their last nine games in all competitions, culminating in a 48-0 loss to Warrington Wolves.
Watson had clearly been struggling in the role, and has now been relieved of his duties.
Here are some candidates to take on the role.
Brian McDermott
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Once a Super League mainstay, there are few coaches that have more experience than Brian McDermott.
After his glittering playing career, where he stayed at Bradford Bulls for the entirety of his playing days, he took coaching roles Huddersfield Giants and Leeds Rhinos.
His first head coach role was at Harlequins RL, now London Broncos, where he stayed for five seasons, from 2006 to 2010.
He then cemented his name as one of the greats during his long spell at Leeds Rhinos, where he won four Grand Finals, a League Leaders’ Shield, back-to-back Challenge Cups and the World Club Challenge.
He’s since struggled to achieve such success, with a Covid-threatened spell at Toronto Wolfpack and a disappointing experience at Featherstone Rovers, which culminated in 2022, being the last we’ve seen of him as a head coach so far.
He’s now assistant at Newcastle Knights.
As someone that’s not currently in a head coach role, he’s could look to join a new club – and with Huddersfield Giants the only vacant Super League role at the moment, he could see this as an opportunity to get back within British rugby league’s elite.
Lee Briers
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Lee Briers has been touted as a target for St Helens as an assistant to Paul Wellens in recent days.
A legend for Warrington in his playing days, making over 400 appearances, the former Wales international was an exciting half-back.
Previously a coach at Warrington, and Wigan Warriors assistant coach, he headed Down Under ahead of the 2023 season, joining the Brisbane Broncos ahead of the 2023 season as an attacking coach.
He’s also joined the England set-up as an assistant coach, alongside Andy Last, supporting Shaun Wane.
Wane said on him: “He’s the one that pushed it. He wants to be involved and has shown that desire.”
Clearly, he’s someone that likes to get involved with new opportunities, and a return to Super League, in a head coach role, may be that new opportunity he’s looking for.
He has spoken in the past about wanting ahead coach role somewhere, and Huddersfield Giants could be his chance.
Danny Ward
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Of these candidates, Danny Ward is the one that most recently had a Super League head coach role.
After coaching their youth teams, and being assistant coach, he was promoted to head coach at London Broncos in 2018, and guided them to promotion in his year year as a head coach, beating Toronto Wolfpack in the Million Pound Game.
He couldn’t however, keep them up in 2019, despite winning ten games and finishing on equal points with Hull KR, and just one win behind Wakefield Trinity and Huddersfield Giants.
Two years after leaving the Broncos, he took the top job at Castleford Tigers for the final six games of the 2023 season, with a win in his first game against local and relegation-rivals Wakefield Trinity enough to keep the Tigers up.
This feels like an unlikely one – he’s at Hull KR as assistant coach on a two-year deal currently, and reportedly rejected taking the role at Castleford permanently.
This suggests that he’s not in a rush to take another head coach job – and this wouldn’t be all too different to the one he rejected at Wheldon Road, which he said was for ‘personal’ reasons.
Justin Holbrook
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Sacked by Gold Coast Titans last year, Holbrook is set to take the assistant coach role with Australia, despite currently being head coach for Papua New Guinea.
Of course, he was previously at St Helens, where he was incredibly successful, winning the League Leaders’ Shield and Super League Grand Final in 2019.
He’s had plenty of assistant coach roles, at Canterbury Bulldogs, St George Illwarra Dragons, Parramatta Eels and South Sydney Rabbitohs.
He was unceremoniously dumped by the Titans in his last club head coaching role though, afterwards saying: “I did not see this coming at all, that’s what I am pissed off about.
“I could understand if they said, ‘Look you have three games or whatever time period to do something’, but to be moved on like this, I’m still coming to terms with it.”
He’d surely relish another head coaching role, and a challenge with Huddersfield Giants may be desirable.
Richard Horne
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After making his debut at the age of 16, Horne played for Hull FC from 1998 to 2014, being a one-club man in his playing days and making 383 appearances in black and white.
He had a spectacular career, setting a record of scoring in thirteen straight games, a Super League record, and playing in the halves for their 2005 Challenge Cup final victory over Leeds Rhinos.
He had a testimonial match with the Black and Whites in 2010, with over 16,000 supporters attending the pre-season fixture against Hull KR.
After retirement, he had a spell as an assistant coach under Lee Radford.
Since 2017, he’s been head coach at Doncaster RLFC.
There, he’s achieved great success – after two promotion final losses in a row, his side achieved promotion back to the Championship in 2023, defeating North Wales Crusaders 18-6 on home turf.
The newly-promoted side have had a very reasonable start to the season, beating the York City Knights 36-20 in their first game back in the second tier.
Since then, the Dons have won six and lost six, drawing another, and sit comfortably in mid-table, just behind Featherstone Rovers.
This could be an outside-the-box move for Huddersfield Giants – he’s a relatively new coach, who has experienced some success with weaker 13s than they have – but it would be a huge risk to bring someone in that’s only just made the step up to the second tier, and has no experience as a head coach in Super League.
He does, though, know the league as a player, and his assistant coach experience under Radford could prove incredibly useful.
