Ian Watson explains why there was such a backlash to Wakefield pitch in Round One

After fears of cancellation, the game between Wakefield Trinity and Huddersfield Giants will go ahead after a pitch inspection determined that the pitch at Belle Vue was safe for the game to take place despite the backlash since the game against Catalans and the complaints from the French side including Steve McNamara.

Now Huddersfield boss, Ian Watson has explained why there was such a backlash to that game:

“I think probably on the Catalans and Wakefield game, Catalans probably weren’t expecting or prepared for that. The backlash and fallout which you’ve seen is not nice, you don’t want your players to be dealing with that. The scars on your knees that we’ve seen on Johnstone and that, they take a fair while to heal them. Then you’re going to play and train and it would be sore all the time, but we’ve put things in place, got a contingency and we’re all good.”

Ultimately, Watson is pleased that the game is going ahead and revealed that the Giants offered solutions to the situation:

“We threw loads of options forward as a club. We just felt if you looked back at Covid times and how good the game was at adapting in neutral venues, double headers, all that kind of thing. As an organisation why couldn’t we come up with that again?

“I know there was a few clubs who put there hand up to offer their services to Wakefield. I understand Wakefield’s point of view of the financial implications it would put on them but it’s a consequence of their actions, not Huddersfield’s actions. For that reason I felt they should have looked at an alternative stadium but it is what it is now.

“We’re more than happy to play at Wakefield, we spoke as a group the other day and said we want to play this week whether it’s Wakefield or anyone else, we can’t have a week off.

“We train on that kind of surface so hopefully the experience and the body training on those surfaces will help us anyway. What we have got though is a really good medical team who have got things in places if anything arises from that game.

“It’s about preparing, making sure the medical team have got things for after the game so it lessens the impact of whatever results we get from the game. The big thing for us is to focus on the game though.

“They are good surfaces to play and train on, I’m all for them but they’ve just got to be right when you go on them. You’ve just got to do your due diligence to make sure they’re in good condition and make sure they’re not an issue.”