Huddersfield Giants

Huddersfield Giants boss gives verdict on new signing, more injury boosts and giving fans something to sing about

by
Sam Brocksom
May 23, 2025

Huddersfield Giants boss Luke Robinson on the sidelines

Huddersfield Giants boss Luke Robinson has spoken to the media ahead of tomorrow’s clash with St Helens with a range of topics up for discussion, including the club’s new signing, more injury boosts, and how that consistency can feed into the Giants finally getting some wins on the board.

The Giants currently sit level bottom of the table, only above Salford on points difference and Huddersfield boss Robinson discussed the impact new signing Tristan Powell will have, players returning from injury and starting to build a winning culture.

Signing from Queensland cup side Burleigh Bears, utility forward Powell is someone Robinson has had his eye on for a while.

“He’s somebody I’ve had a lot of interest in since last year, he was somebody that I enquired about,” the Giants’ coach revealed.

“I would have liked to have brought him to the club earlier, but he’s someone that only now has become available.”

Robinson is keen to see him play and says he will bolster the Giants pack, noting: “You can never have too many middles. People that understand the game, they’re the ones that do a lot of graft.

“He’s a really good worker, really good leg speed, really tidy in everything he does. He’s going to be a welcome addition to our pack and to our side.”

Huddersfield Giants boss “excited” to see new spine combination

The Giants welcomed back off-season recruit George King into the side in last week’s defeat. Their injury crisis has been well documented, but now it seems they are nearing the end and are enjoying having players back.

“Jack Murchie’s not trained, he’s still very underdone,” Robinson explained, adding: “Ollie Wilson, we are toing and froing whether he was going to be able to play, we’ve got a little bit of sickness in the camp a couple of players haven’t trained today.

“Inevitably, when you start getting experience back, it makes a big difference. In an ideal situation I’d give them two or three more weeks… we have kind of rushed them and thrown them back in, but we still are going to be a lot better for it.”

The Giants will welcome back another injury layoff, with Tongan international Tui Lolohea set to make his first Huddersfield appearance since March.

On Lolohea, Robinson said: “He’s been out for a bit, but he definitely aids [the attack]. Put Tui Lolohea in any side and suddenly you become a lot more threatening with the ball.

“I’m really excited to see him play, it’s his first game back so he is going to be a little bit ring rusty, but I’m just really excited to see Cluney [Adam Clune], Tui and Zac [Woolford] actually play together.”

Robinson calls for club to string some wins together

Prop Matty English is unavailable this week after he failed a HIA. English has previous experience with head knocks, so Robinson knows they must take extra care.

He said: “The recommendations are regarding how many head knocks you have in the last 12 months, and he hasn’t had any in the last 12 months, but historically throughout his career he has had a fair few so we are going to see the specialist as we would anyway, we will do our due diligence.”

The Giants attack was a key issue in their defeat at the Rovers, and schoolboy errors were what Robinson felt hurt them most he felt: “For the vast majority of the game we defended really well, they were covering for each other and the effort was there.

“The wheels fell off at the latter end of the game I think it was down to fatigue. I don’t think we used the ball very well, we coughed the ball up way too easily there was a lot of basic errors that we need to eradicate from our game because Saints will punish you if you give them that much ball and that much field position.”

With more consistent team selections, the team can start to build up cohesion and Robinson says this will hopefully lead to a winning culture in the side.

“You want to win games,” he declared, adding: “You want to finish as high up on the ladder as you can. You want to give the fans something to sing about. You want to give the players something to feel good about. We know we’ve had a difficult start to the year. We’ve got some players coming back now and hopefully we can start to build some momentum in this middle patch.

“Hopefully we get some game time under our belts and start to build some combinations and then in the latter end of the season pick up some victories and some good wins.”