It was clear from the scoreline alone on Friday night that the clash between Wakefield Trinity and Huddersfield Giants that it was a game that could have been very different with someone like Jake Connor playing as the Giants scraped to an 8-0 win.
This was the view of Ian Watson who spoke to BBC Sport West Yorkshire after the game:
“I’m pretty confident, we’ve obviously got a player in the stand who everyone knows is pretty good at opening up defences and that’s the main reason he’s here.
“He’s funny, he’ll be looking at that and asking ‘why have we done that or not done this’ and sometimes it’s a case of similar to George Williams where he sees it and picks it, Jake is like that. He sees it and picks it and that’s the little bit of X factor we’re missing at this time. For sheer grittiness though I thought the boys were outstanding.”
He then gave an update on Connor’s return from injury:
“He’s back in full training this week coming now. I don’t want to push him too early, he needs some miles under his legs first which he’s started doing with the S&C the last couple of weeks, now it’s about combining it.
“He’s not going to get a pre-season, he’s going to have to build on the run but what we don’t want him to do is be out of breath and be behind.”
Asked if he could be back for a big game against Wigan, Watson said: “It may be, it’ll definitely be in and around there when he’s starting to come back into it as well.
When he was told that the Wigan game is on TV: “He’ll love that for sure.”
