Huddersfield Giants coach issues bleak pre-season injury update with ‘pivotal’ January detailed

Huddersfield Giants head coach Luke Robinson has laid bare the extent of their pre-season injury list, admitting that January is going to be ‘really pivotal’ as they prepare for the 2025 campaign.

Robinson, who has spent over a decade attached to the club in various roles including as a player, youth coach and assistant – took interim charge in July following Ian Watson’s dismissal.

Come the start of September, he was then appointed as the Giants’ head coach on a permanent basis, penning a three-year deal and guiding them to a 9th-place finish.

2025 will be his first full year at the helm, but so far, his – and their – preparations have been scuppered by a plethora of reasons.

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Huddersfield Giants coach issues bleak pre-season injury update

LoveRugbyLeague caught up with Robinson during Huddersfield‘s media day earlier this week, and he provided an in-depth breakdown of how pre-season has gone so far.

The 40-year-old said: “I’m not being doom and gloom, because we’re having a good pre-season and it’s really exciting times here, but we’re probably a little bit snookered just regarding numbers.

“There’s a little bit of a hangover there from last year. (Some) players are only just coming back now – Matty English, Ash Golding, (Sam) Halsall, (Liam) Sutcliffe… they’ve not been in yet.

“Cluney (Adam Clune) is out till after Christmas. They’re all pretty much coming back after Christmas, so it’s been slightly disruptive if I’m being honest.

“I’ve taken it as a positive, we’ve managed to get a lot of young kids  in, and we probably wouldn’t have had the chance to do that if those first-teamers were able to be in and around it.

“There’s been an opportunity for us to get those young lads up to speed, and we’ve given them an opportunity to see where they’re at.”

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Luke Robinson details ‘really pivotal’ January for Giants

Ahead of 2025, Robinson has made six additions to his squad, with George King and Liam Sutcliffe the only two of the septet to have joined from Super League clubs in the shape of Hull KR and Hull FC respectively.

Both of those are currently sidelined, with King set to miss the first few months of the campaign having suffered a horror ankle injury.

Veteran England international Tom Burgess, Jacob Gagai and Taane Milne have all joined from South Sydney Rabbitohs, with the overseas pair only touching down in the UK recently.

Meanwhile, Zac Woolford has linked up with the Giants from Canberra Raiders.

Revealing how important next month is going to be for his squad, Robinson continued: “Everybody that’s been training has been training extremely hard, but then Taane (Milne) and (Jacob) Gagai haven’t even been here, they’ve only just got here, so after Christmas is going to be really key for us.

“We go to Malaga for five days where we should have a clean bill of health (except for George King).

“You can never say that 100% in rugby league because it’s a contact sport, but we should have a clean bill of health, so January’s going to be really pivotal for us to start getting some connections and combinations going before the friendlies.

“A lot of them (the players injured at the end of 2024) were three and four month operations, or recovery timeframes. That’s been the issue and a lot of them are all in the same positions – it’s been my halves or my outside-backs.

“After Christmas, that’s when it feels like pre-season is really going to get going.”

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