The Story Of 2023…
While there was never any danger of the Giants slipping out of the top flight they never really threatened to join the playoff party either. Ian Watson’s side had high hopes for 2023 having finished third a year previously. As it was they meandered to a disappointing eighth placed finish at the end of the regular season with a record of 11 wins and 16 losses from their 27 outings.
Watson might make the case that things could have been oh so different. There were 14-12 losses to both Wigan and Saints on consecutive weekends in March and a one-point reverse at Leeds in April. They won in Perpignan against the Dragons in the heat of July, and recorded a 21-12 success against Rohan Smith’s side in August. Yet the 54-0 shellacking they had received from the Headingley club in June was probably the nadir of the whole campaign. They were also scoreless and quite literally pointless in losing 28-0 at Hull KR in May.
The Giants’ longest winning streak was just four matches. That win in the south of France was followed by victories over Wakefield, Hull FC and Castleford before a 32-18 loss at Saints while the rest of the league had the weekend off for the Challenge Cup final apart from participants Leigh Leopards and Hull KR. By the same token the Giants never lost more than four in a row. They were consistently inconsistent and ultimately mediocre. Going into his fourth season in charge at The John Smith’s Stadium Watson appears to be sitting on one of the hottest seats in Super League. It’s a potentially crucial year for him.
The Challenge Cup brought no joy for the West Yorkshire side. They had made it all the way to…er…Tottenham for the 2022 final where they lost to a late Liam Marshall try for Wigan. Yet they couldn’t repeat that run in 2023, falling at the first hurdle to Watson’s old club Salford in a wild one which finished 42-40 to the Red Devils.
The 2024 Recruits…
The headline act among the newbies is halfback Adam Clune. The 28 year-old has amassed almost 50 NRL appearances in spells with St George-Illawarra Dragons and Newcastle Knights but could not force his way into the first team of the latter in 2023 until Watson’s old Salford mucker Jackson Hastings went down injured towards the end of the season. With Theo Fages now in his native France with Catalans Dragons Clune will hope to hold off Olly Russell for the starting halfback role. Will Pryce has made the opposite journey to Clune - joining the Knights from the Giants - so we may see Huddersfield’s new man form a midfield pairing with the talented but unpredictable Jake Connor. Whatever else it is, that probably won’t be dull.
In the pack Watson has placed his faith in another man who struggled to play first grade in the NRL. Second rower Jack Murchie managed only five appearances for Parramatta Eels in 2023 having joined from New Zealand Warriors. Despite that, expect the 26 year-old to challenge the likes of Harry Rushton, Leroy Cudjoe, Harvey Livett, Andre Savelio and Sam Hewitt for a starting berth in the back row.
Hooker Thomas Deakin is an Oldham lad who has spent 16 of his 21 years on this Earth in Australia. Latterly he has been on the books at Sydney Roosters but arrives in West Yorkshire to compete with Adam Milner for a spot at dummy half. French prop Hugo Salabio is another front rower who represents potential for now having gained some Super League experience with Catalans Dragons and Wakefield Trinity.
No Super League squad seems complete without an ex-Saints man forced to explore first team opportunities elsewhere, and the Giants have acquired two new ones in Adam Swift and Savelio. Both arrive from Hull FC where Swift was one of the better performers in another season of underachievement despite the guidance of Head Coach Tony Smith. Swift scored 86 tries in 130 appearances for Saints between 2012-19 and has added another 36 in 55 matches for FC. The lad knows where the try line is and now, aged 30, also brings great experience.
Savelio is an undoubtedly talented back rower who has never quite blossomed into the star that he could be. That’s down to a combination of injuries and his uncanny knack of getting in his own way. That he lasted five seasons on Humberside seems to say more about the black and whites’ willingness to accept the sheer humdrum nature of their performances during that time rather than any suggestion that Savelio had become a key figure. Huddersfield represents another new start for the ex-Warrington and Castleford man who is still somehow only 28. It’s an opportunity he surely cannot afford to waste.
Completing the recruitment at the time of writing are 23 year-old winger Elliott Wallis who was one of the bright spots in Castleford’s otherwise dismal 2023 campaign and 20 year-old centre Connor Carr who has now signed professional terms with the Giants.
So Who's Out?
After 15 years and over 300 appearances Jermaine McGillvary is no longer a Huddersfield Giant. It was a sadly acrimonious end as the former England and Great Britain winger was informed of his release by the Giants only hours before it became public knowledge. It is alleged that the 35 year-old was first alerted to the fact that his future may lie elsewhere when he was asked by the club's welfare officer whether he would be retiring from the game. He's not, but he won't be operating in Super League in 2024 having agreed to join the rebuild at relegated Wakefield Trinity under Daryl Powell.
Pryce has been a star at Huddersfield for a rather shorter period than McGillvary, but he also heads for the exit having been snapped up by the Knights. Pryce - son of Saints legend Leon - has only made 44 appearances for the Huddersfield side in three seasons since breaking through from the academy. Yet that is enough to convince the Knights' scouts that he has what it takes to make it in the strongest competition the game has to offer. His pace and skill are going to be hard to replace for Watson - under whom a nagging sense remains that the Giants never saw the best of the 21 year-old.
Not that there is a comparison to be made in terms of talent level but the same could perhaps be said of Fages. The Frenchman won back to back Super League Grand Finals with Saints in 2019 and 2020 and was a Challenge Cup winner at Wembley the following year. Yet he only managed to turn out 17 times in two seasons in West Yorkshire. He will spend 2024 back in his homeland with the Dragons.
Two other ex-Saints are also departing with Jack Ashworth linking up with Tony Smith's Hull FC and Josh Jones calling time on his playing career due to concussion issues. Jones made 105 appearances for Saints between 2012-15 and was part of one of the more unlikely Super League Grand Final winning sides in 2014. Ashworth was also a Grand Final winner in the red vee, appearing from the interchange bench in Saints' victory over the Red Devils in 2019.
Jones isn't the only key retirement among the Giants ranks. Much travelled hooker Nathan Peats calls it quits at 33 years of age and after representing seven clubs on both sides of the globe. That is a blow, but perhaps the loss of back rower Chris McQueen - Try Machine - will be even more keenly felt. A former winger and centre and 2014 NRL Grand Final winner with South Sydney Rabbitohs, McQueen bagged 33 tries in 75 Giants appearances which were predominantly in the second row. He made one appearance for England against Samoa in 2017 having qualified through his father. He also won the 2022 Lance Todd Trophy as Man Of The Match while on the losing side in the Challenge Cup final against Wigan at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. He has been arguably the Giants' best player throughout the so far underwhelming Watson era and will be a difficult man to replace.
Utility forward Owen Trout is heading to 2023's surprise package, playoff participants and Challenge Cup winners Leigh, while hooker Adam O'Brien is dropping down a division to turn out for his hometown Halifax Panthers. Nathan Mason has made a move down under - but it is the Illawarra Rugby League which will he will grace rather than the NRL after switching to the wonderfully Australian Corrimal Cougars.
What's The Expectation?
Huddersfield fans will probably still feel, despite everything that they endured in 2023, that they have the squad and the coach to make a push for the playoffs. After all they are just one of a number of mediocre sides who could emerge from the scrap below the real quality that resides in the top two or three and snag themselves a playoff berth. There is usually an unexpected contender in any given season of Super League and Giants fans as well as owner Ken Davy will feel that it could be them. Although they may feel it in the same way that you feel that it could be you who wins the jackpot on Lotto this weekend. It could, but you are not exactly preparing for it, are you?
A top six place would represent success. Even a sustained challenge for a top six place might placate the fans. Just the opportunity to be in the conversation when those final few games of the regular season zoom into view come late August and September would represent improvement.
What Will Really Happen?
The pessimistic view is that Watson will do well to still be in his job by the middle of March. The Giants open up their 2024 campaign with a trip to the Leopards. Last year's upstart success story may not replicate the heroics of 2023 but they are unlikely to go back to being the easy beats they were after previous promotions to the top flight. After that Huddersfield face Saints at home and Wigan away in what is a pretty unforgiving start to the season. Though they pushed both of those two constantly bickering heavyweights close in games last season it is not beyond the realms that the Giants could make an 0-3 start. Such an outcome could place Watson under unbearable pressure.
Should he survive we know he has previous for guiding unfancied teams into the very biggest games. This after all is the man who led Salford Red Devils to the Grand Final in 2019 and the Challenge Cup final a year later. That the Red Devils lost both of those games does not change the fact that these were feats of great overachievement. Prior to Watson's involvement summer era Salford only ever reached Grand Finals and Challenge Cup finals in the mind of Phil Clarke and his ever more desperate look at me punditry. Yet it is has never quite felt like Watson will bring the same feel good factor to the John Smith's Stadium that he did to Salford. You may not sense that he can awake another sleeping giant (that’s more nominative determinism than pun) and at least ruffle the feathers of the Usual Suspects who seem to sit effortlessly, untroubled, atop the table year on year.
If he can't at least instil that belief this time around and give the fans a run for their money it could be the beginning of the end. It's probably make or break for Watson at Huddersfield in 2024.
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