Upbeat head coach Paul Anderson believes the Huddersfield Giants deserve to make a winning start to their Super League XXI campaign, given the hurdles they’ve overcome throughout pre-season.

Huddersfield head to St Helens tonight (8.00) confident of making a winning start to their 2016 top-flight campaign.

Despite the Giants having one of the skinniest squads in the competition and being forced to deal with the added disruption of losing England back-row forward Brett Ferres to Leeds in controversial fashion, impressive trial triumphs at Hull KR (38-6) and at home to Catalans Dragons (26-16, and without skipper Danny Brough pulling the strings that day) have put Huddersfield in a positive mood ahead of the tough trip to Langtree Park.

And with Anderson’s men having beefed themselves up for the physical challenges ahead and new big Australian NRL signings Ryan Hinchcliffe and Sam Rapira fitting in superbly from day one, hopes are high that Huddersfield can immediately make their mark.

“I’ve got nothing but praise for the way everyone has applied themselves throughout pre-season,” said Anderson.

“It hasn’t all been plain sailing. We’ve had to overcome quite a few hurdles along the way.

Chris Roberts on Super League XXI

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“But throughout that time we’ve kept working as hard as we possibly can and continued to make progress.

“As a result, we saw some positive signs in the trial games, and we’ve taken a lot of confidence from those.

“Those performances were obviously far from perfect, and we’ve worked hard at trying to iron out a few things since then.

“Hopefully, that continued hard work will reap its reward tonight, and the players will get the result their efforts over the past few months deserve.”