Super League side have pitch problem

Huddersfield Giants coach Ian Watson has revealed the club has a pitch problem.

The Giants have suffered a huge loss in the shape of Olly Russell going down with a torn hamstring in training because the Giants have been forced to train on a different surface with their training pitch at Siddal being redone.

“He’s torn his hammy in training. We’re waiting for a scan. We’ve been training on a pitch which was perfect, which was Siddall, and now we’re training on a different surface and it just goes to show how the quality of your surfaces can make a massive difference in what you can put out on a weekend,” he said.

“We didn’t have one hamstring strain when we were training on the pitch at Siddall. We’ve moved over here now and we’ve had two in Ash Golding and Oliver Russell. There’s been other little niggles off the back of that, your training facilities are massive in what you do.

“It looks bad mate, he’s still sore which is a good sign as it means the tendons not come off but we need a scan to see where it is. At the moment that means our two main controllers are out, that’s what we say when people ask if I’m disheartened or positive. I’m really positive because we’ve not got our full strength team out by far. Once we get that I know we’ll be flying.”

When asked about the change of pitch, he said: “Just because Siddall have had to redo theirs, when you have a pitch like that you have to redo it every year and unfortunately for us it’s fell at this time. I think if Siddall could have held it off, they’d have held it off but this is the best time. They’ve been great with us so there’s no qualms about it.”