IT was great news to hear Jermaine McGillvary had been named the Albert Goldthorpe Rookie of the Year. You must be delighted for him.

Yes, everyone at the Giants couldn’t be happier.

Since breaking into the side this season he’s done a terrific job for us and it’s fantastic that he’s now gained wider recognition.

Apparently, he just pipped Wigan’s Josh Charnley for the award, and when you think what a great season he’s had for them, it puts it into perspective how highly rated Jerry has already become in the game.

And it really is an honour that’s thoroughly deserved.

Over the past three years he’s worked incredibly hard on his game – whether it’s been all the tough hours of training, all those video analysis sessions or time spent out on loan at Championship clubs – and is now reaping his reward.

But what’s also good about Jerry is that he is quick to acknowledge the efforts of all those around him who have done so much to advance his game.

A lot of people have been involved in that process, and it’s something Jerry is keen for everyone to remember.

On the other hand, were you disappointed the Giants didn’t have a single player in the Super League Dream Team?

Who gets in and who doesn’t is always a major subject for debate. There are so many arguments as to why a certain player gets in ahead of someone else.

But what counted against us was the fact we had a number of key players out injured for a fair amount of time and also our form over recent months hasn’t been the greatest.

On top of that, I suppose you could say we’re still not regarded as one of the more fashionable clubs in the competition, so gaining wider recognition is always going to be that little bit tougher – although it was good to see Jerry being such a high-profile exception to that particular rule!

Does this Dream Team ‘snub’ make the players even more determined to do well in the play-offs?

I don’t know about that, because I know how determined everyone is to get into the play-offs anyway.

But if it does make them even more motivated it’s certainly not a bad thing.

However, as I said, the players have worked tremendously hard to secure their fourth-place finish and they don’t want to see all that go to waste with some poor play-off performances.

Has the home defeat to Leeds Rhinos dented any confidence ahead of the trip to Warrington tomorrow night?

Not at all.

Obviously, it’s always nice to win games, but we were more concerned about the performance, and that was the best we’ve played for quite some time.

Put it this way, if Leeds had played as well as they did against us the other day and we’d played to our standard of just over a month ago, we’d have got nowhere near them.

But the other day we came very close to getting the win against a Leeds side who have quality players throughout and were extremely unlucky to lose to Wigan in the Challenge Cup final a few weeks ago.

And it was also just the sort of contest we needed ahead of the start of the play-offs.

If we’d not been worried about the result or they’d not been worried about it, then someone could have got an easy win, which is the sort of build-up neither side would have wanted.

Instead, we got a good, intense contest, which is ideal preparation for the play-offs games ahead.

We’re certainly getting ready for something similar tomorrow night.

Do you believe the result would have been completely different had you not been on the end of one or two harsh-looking refereeing calls?

Focusing on what the referee did or didn’t do is out of our control.

It’s how we react to decisions that concerns us, and it was clear we need to react better than we did to them the other day.

And when it came to whether Carl Ablett did or didn’t lose the ball on the line for Ryan Hall’s try, my concern wasn’t over the call, it was the fact we made a poor defensive decision which enabled Leeds to get into a scoring position in the first place.

It’s making sure mistakes like that don’t happen again that is our main concern, because we know that if we fix up a few little things here and there then we’ll be even better.

That’s something that’s 100% within our control. Refereeing decisions aren’t.

It was good to see Keith Mason back after his knee injury. How pleased were you with his particular contribution?

I thought he looked quite strong, particularly during his first stint.

Keith brings something extra to our team – just as every member of our squad does – and it was definitely good to see him back.

His return has come at just the right time.

Talking of players returning from injury, when do you think we’ll be seeing Shaun Lunt back in action following his groin surgery?

As I’m sure everyone knows, we’d hoped to have seen him back by now!

But with the way things are going, we can’t see him returning for at least two more weeks.

The initial hope was for Lunty to return for last weekend’s game against Leeds, but it was clear in training that he just wasn’t right.

So it’s now a case of taking it one day at a time.

Finally, Luke O’Donnell has now had his major knee surgery. How did that go?

As well as we could have expected.

When the knee was opened up, the surgeon didn’t have to do any extra work, it was just the cruciate that needed fixing up.

So, hopefully, that means he’ll be back within six months, which is the best-case scenario for an injury like this.