Ferres wary of reaction from Giants

Leeds forward Brett Ferres is expecting a reaction from Huddersfield when they travel to Headingley Carnegie to face the Rhinos on Thursday.

The Giants haven’t won in their last eight Super League outings and were dumped out of the Challenge Cup by Swinton last weekend, but Ferres expects them to come out fighting against Leeds.

“They are in a bit of a crisis – they have recruited poorly over the last couple of years,” Ferres told the Yorkshire Evening Post.

“I don’t think they’ve brought in the kind of players they needed to. It has certainly changed from the team when I was there in 2013 and 2014 in particular.

“There were some good players then – there’s some now, but they need a few more to complement them. If you look at the squad that played Swinton, it wasn’t a bad squad, but it just wasn’t enough.

“Full credit to Swinton, they took their opportunity. I’m guessing Huddersfield rested a few for that game and they’ll get a few back this week and you’d expect to see a reaction from the boys.”

Victory for Leeds would take them to the top of the table and Ferres believes the team is ticking along nicely.

“I think we are in a very good position,” he added. “We’ve not been talked about much this year – we’ve quietly gone about our business and we’ve been doing a job without probably playing brilliant.

“Last year we weren’t winning these games, but now we are winning the tight, tough ones and getting the performances we need.

“For us, we are in a great spot. We have come out of the Easter weekend pretty fresh and injury-free, which was important and we’ve got a couple of big fixtures now and then into another mini-Easter weekend.

“The next five or six weeks is a really important time.”