Huddersfield coach impressed with young half-backs Olly Russell and Will Pryce

Watson was also full of praise for Olly Ashall-Bott for the way he deputised for injured full-back Ashton Golding.

“Our spine is really young but they’re doing a good job,” he said. “They are all young men making their way in the game but they are standing up.

“Olly (Russell) is a great player and he’s developed this year again with his level of composure and understanding of how to manage a game.

“I think he has come on in leaps and bounds, he’s been outstanding every time he’s played for us.”

Huddersfield fell behind to an early try from Hull KR half-back Mikey Lewis but rallied to a 22-12 interval lead and, although their suspect defence meant they could never relax, they never looked like relinquishing their advantage.

“Our goal-line defence is something we need to fix up, but the guys are getting more resilient,” Watson said.

“This group of players is playing for each other. We got the win and it’s a good win for us.”

Huddersfield’s win came at a cost, with forward Luke Yates likely to miss the rest of the season with a suspected torn pectoral muscle.

“If it’s going to happen it’s good that it’s at the end end of the year so he can be right for the start of next season,” Watson said.

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A third successive defeat leaves the Robins still sweating over a top-six finish as they failed to take advantage of defeats for play-off rivals Leeds, Castleford and Hull earlier in the day, not that coach Tony Smith was thinking that way.

“I’m not bothered about that, we just need to get back to performing well,” he said.

“We were way off in terms of skill level and energy levels. They ran harder than us and tackled a bit harder than us.

“We can make excuses about changes but I’m not going to. They deserved it, they out-enthused us.

“It wasn’t much of a game I didn’t think. The quality was pretty poor, certainly from our perspective.”

Smith, who began his senior coaching career at Huddersfield, bemoaned the absence of a scoreboard at the John Smith’s Stadium, which was out of action due to technical issues.

“It was hard to keep up with the score,” he said. “Even the players at different stages didn’t know what what the gap was.

“There are some standards that just should be and at a sporting ground I would have thought it was compulsory to have a scoreboard.”

Smith says centre Brad Takairangi was forced off with a calf injury, while loose forward George Lawler dislocated a thumb and prop Muizz Mustapha sustained a dislocated shoulder.