Luke Robinson explains obscure reason behind Brandon Moore absence

Huddersfield head coach Luke Robinson has explained the reason new loan signing Brandon Moore won’t feature when the Giants face Hull KR on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old hooker was brought in on deadline day from Championship club Halifax to bolster the club’s options, after regular no.9 Adam O’Brien suffered a season-ending neck injury.

Moore was absent from Robinson’s 21-man squad for the visit of the Robins but the interim boss insists he’d rather bed him in gently, not least because of his other profession.

“I coach with (Halifax head coach) Simon Grix down at Siddal at the under-10s and he’s got nothing but high praise of Brandon,” Robinson said. “Defensively he’s really sound, really tough and with the ball he can cause some problems.

“The big thing for him and why I’ve not included him is he’s a roofer. He’s been stuck up a roof for the past however many months.

“I can’t just throw him into a Super League game with players who he probably doesn’t know the names or the nicknames of when he’s been stuck up a roof working. It wouldn’t be fair on him and it wouldn’t be fair on us.

“He’s probably going to have a couple of weeks of bedding in, working out our calls, our terminology of plays.

“Throughout rugby league everyone has the same plays, it’s just the terminology that’s different, so he needs to get to grips with that. So he’ll be spending a couple of weeks just bedding in and finding himself.”

The deal will see Moore stay with the Giants on a temporary basis until the end of the season.

Should he impress within the coming months, however, Robinson has refused to rule out a permanent switch, although he does admit that probably wouldn’t go down well with good friend Grix.

“I’m not sure Simon would be very happy with me if that was the case,” he joked. “But that is rugby league.

“I spoke to him (Moore) and said, ‘All I can guarantee is if you train the house down, you pick up the calls and get an understanding of the way we play, there will be an opportunity’.

“I looked at our fixture list and towards the back end we’ve got something like three games in six days or something like that.

“They’re only pencilled in at the moment and that can change but there’s going to be opportunities for everyone in the squad to play and that’s what I said to him.

“Whether he grabs the opportunity with both hands is yet to be seen, but if he plays well then why not? He could stay in the team and do really well.

“But at this moment in time I would never make any promises to any player.”