Huddersfield Giants head coach Paul Anderson is resigned to being patient as his players steadily filter back from Rugby League World Cup duty.
As the competition enters the quarter-final stage Huddersfield have Scotland skipper Danny Brough, and England duo Brett Ferres and Leroy Cudjoe still active in the competition, while the Giants are already back in pre-season training.
For Anderson it means that pre-Christmas work has to be carefully structured.
“The way things are with the World Cup, we won’t be doing too much team stuff prior to Christmas,” said Anderson.
“But we don’t plan too far ahead skill-wise and we’ll just keep progressing as we need to.
“We have a camp in January where everybody will be together with everybody injury free and healthy. The camp will be really important for us and we will be kicking on from that.”
England coach Steve McNamara says he is expecting a stern challenge from France in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final at Wigan.
France’s 22-6 defeat by Samoa in Perpignan completed the pool stages and they face third favourites England after finishing third in their group.
After beating the French 44-6 and 48-4 in last year’s autumn internationals with the nucleus of the side that will be on duty at the DW Stadium, McNamara’s men are favourites to secure a place in the Wembley semi-final double-header.
However, McNamara believes France are a much-improved team under new coach Richard Agar, the Wakefield and former Hull boss, and he was impressed with their performance against the physical Samoans.
“The game was pretty brutal at times with a lot of physical contact,” said McNamara.
“Both sides knew they were going to progress into the quarter-finals, but I thought there was a lot of intent from both teams.
“I think France are going to be a really tough team. They showed that and they stood up to Samoa. They were brave and pretty heroic at times under some real pressure. They have got a lot of spirit within their team, so they’re dangerous opposition for us.”
Samoa have paid the price for their physical approach to their final Group B match against France with two of their players suspended ruling them out of Sunday’s World Cup quarter-final against Fiji.
The Pacific Islanders had new St Helens signing Mose Masoe sin-binned and three other players put on report in their 22-6 win in Perpignan.
An international review panel handed out one-match bans to second rower Leeson Ah Mau and loose forward Sauaso Sue which will sideline them for the clash with Fiji in Warrington.
