THE MILLENNIUM Magic weekend is almost upon us and we can feel the excitement growing.
It’s not every day you get the chance to play at a venue like Cardiff’s magnificent Millennium Stadium, but that’s exactly what we’ll be doing against Warrington Wolves on Saturday.
Personally, I think taking the whole round of Super League to the Welsh capital is a brilliant concept.
It made a fantastic debut last year and it was great to be a part of something like this. And, of course, the icing on the cake was securing a big win over Wakefield!
So, let’s just hope we can experience something similar this weekend, culminating in a magnificent win over the Wolves.
Winning is obviously something we need to start doing quickly after seeing ourselves slip down the Super League table, and we hope that the different feel this weekend can act as the catalyst.
It goes without saying that nobody inside the Giants camp is happy with the way the results have been going. To be honest, they have been tough to take.
But, as I’ve been saying for several weeks, this year has started to mirror last when we went through such a demanding time at the start of the season. We just couldn’t buy a win, even though we knew we were so close to turning things around.
And we still believe 100% that the experience of 2007 will stand us in good stead for 2008.
Like last year, we have complete faith in ourselves and each other, and we also know that by staying strong and staying smart the tide will begin to turn. We have recent history on our side to show that.
We also found that a key to changing our fortunes last year was staying calm, as well as staying positive, and making sure we stuck together as a group.
So, with this in mind, we’ve embarked on several team building exercises over the past few weeks.
For instance, last week we all visited Xscape, and at the start of this week we went into the countryside for a one-and-a-half hour walk, which tired out the boys because they’re not used to walking that far!
But we finished off with a meal at the Cherry Tree at High Hoyland, which everyone loved.
It kept the spirits high and made sure everyone kept in a very positive mood.
Having said that, however, the feeling in the camp has never been that downbeat anyway.
Yes, the players hate losing and are frustrated with the way things have been going.
But we all know we are a decent team, and when the breaks start going our way we’ll be able to prove that to everyone.
We did, of course, receive a big lift against Hull at the weekend with the highly successful return from injury of Martin Aspinwall.
It was obviously his first game back since suffering a serious knee injury in July last year, but you certainly couldn’t tell.
In fact, the game at Hull was the first time Martin and Rod Jensen had been on the field together.
Rocket already seems to have been here forever, which shows how long Martin hasn’t been around!
And I’m sure it won’t be long before these two start terrorising the opposition.
When they do, the Giants will once again be smiling!
