Super League: Warrington Wolves and Huddersfield Giants seek response to losses in Saturday's live showdown
Head coaches Daryl Powell and Ian Watson assess their respective seasons so far ahead of Warrington Wolves and Huddersfield Giants clashing in the Betfred Super League on Saturday (5pm); watch live on Sky Sports Arena from 4.30pm
Saturday 10 June 2023 09:32, UK
Flying high in the Betfred Super League table at the midway point of the regular season with 10 wins from 14? Warrington Wolves head coach Daryl Powell would have quite happily taken that if he was offered it at the start of the 2023 campaign.
Given last year's struggles it is no surprise Powell is more than happy with how the Wolves have performed to this point, although back-to-back defeats at the hands of Leigh Leopards and Hull FC have seen them deposed as table-toppers by Catalans Dragons on points difference and now one of four teams bunched on 20 points.
The former Great Britain international, who guided Castleford Tigers to League Leaders' Shield success in 2017, has been around the sport long enough to know not to be too high or low over wins or losses, however.
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So, while he admits Warrington have not been at their best recently and need improvements in some areas, he is still happy with how the season is progressing ahead of Saturday's visit of Huddersfield Giants, which is live on Sky Sports from 4.30pm (kick-off 5pm).
"It's a pretty tough sport, rugby league, and you've got to be durable to come out the other side," Powell said in his pre-match press conference ahead of the meeting with a team they beat 26-16 at the John Smith's Stadium in February.
"We keep saying if you'd have given us this at the start of the year we'd say 'yeah, we're pretty happy with that'.
"We're in a good position. Obviously, we need to refocus a little bit and get ourselves back on track after the last couple of games, and we're focused on doing that.
"We break our season down into blocks anyway. The halfway point isn't significant from that perspective, but it is from if you look at it as we're in a good place now and it's about starting to kick on and get back to our best."
If Warrington have finally started to match the expectations many observers had of them last year, then the same cannot be said of Huddersfield, who had been tipped to kick on after a strong second year with Ian Watson at the helm.
Watson guided the Giants to a place in the Super League play-offs and a first Betfred Challenge Cup final appearance for 13 years in 2022, but this year they find themselves languishing in 10th place and six points off the top six at the midway point of the regular season.
A 20-4 win over Castleford just over two weeks ago is their only win since defeating Catalans on April 14 too, but head coach Watson struck a bullish tone ahead of the trip to Warrington.
"It's funny because when you're winning people don't recall your record, but when you're losing everyone wants to bring your record up and throw stones at you," Watson said in his pre-match press conference.
"We know we didn't do well last week. We felt we'd been going back in the right direction over the last few weeks, but the weekend set us back.
"There are lots of factors you can look at and start talking about but it's pointless going back through them. The fact is we need to move on and attack this week really confidently and do what we did against Castleford a couple of weeks ago."
Powell picked out his side's attack and goal-line defence as the two areas he wants to see an improvement in heading into the second half of the campaign, where securing a home semi-final for the play-offs will be the target if not lifting the League Leaders' Shield as well.
The absence of half-back Josh Drinkwater due to injury for the match against Huddersfield has not helped matters, nor has the 12-match ban handed out to high-profile off-season recruit Josh McGuire, but Connor Wrench's two tries in the 30-18 defeat to Hull FC at Magic Weekend on his return from nine months out with an ACL injury have given Powell a boost.
"We're looking forward to improving our attacking play," Powell said. "When we're getting in good attacking positions, we're not quite as clinical as we have been in the past, and our try-line defence has been another thing we talked about improving.
"I thought we started great last week [against Hull FC] in the first half and the start of the second half was probably the period that ended up losing us the game."
Watson, on the other hand, is seeking a big response as his side aim to erase the memories of the 48-6 humbling against St Helens in Newcastle last Sunday and had a warning for his players in the wake of that loss.
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"It was nowhere near the level of performance we need to be," Watson said afterwards.
"Some individuals are way of the mark at the moment and it's up to them to get better or for us to make a choice on whether to replace them going forward."
Watch Warrington Wolves take on Huddersfield Giants in the Betfred Super League live on Sky Sports Arena from 4.30pm on Saturday, June 10. Also stream on NOW TV.
