Ian Watson says Wakefield Trinity should have considered “an alternative stadium” due to pitch

Huddersfield Giants’ trip to Wakefield Trinity is definitely on after there were fears it could be cancelled with a pitch inspection coming after the pitch at Belle Vue left Catalans Dragons players hurt as they lost skin on the partly synthetic surface.

However, the game will now go ahead and Huddersfield coach Ian Watson has now revealed that he was desperate for the game to go ahead and that the club put options forward.

He also said that he felt Wakefield should have considered an “alternative stadium.”

He said: “We threw loads of options forward as a club. We just felt if you looked back at the pandemic 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.”