GIANTS staff will monitor the fitness of winger Martin Aspinwall closely before a decision is taken on his next big step on the comeback trail.

The Great Britain ace made a successful return to action in the 52-12 Reserve win over Wakefield at the weekend.

It was the 26-year-old’s first match since suffering a major knee injury in the Super League clash against Warrington last July.

The key now is obviously how Aspinwall responds to playing the full game, with a senior return in Sunday’s Carnegie Challenge Cup fourth-round tie at Halifax having not been completely ruled out at this stage.

“All being well, Martin will have a run-out again this weekend,” said football manager Stuart Sheard.

“But at what level remains to be seen.

“The main priority is making sure Martin hasn’t suffered too much of a reaction to playing a first full game in such a long time.

“Obviously his knee is aching a bit at the moment, which is to be expected. It’s just a case of seeing how quickly he recovers.

“But whatever happens this weekend it’s fantastic to see Martin playing again.

“We deliberately kept his return quiet because we didn’t want to put too much pressure on him.

“And it seemed to do the trick.

“You could see the longer the game went on, the more confident Martin became.

“He became increasingly involved and was very unlucky to have two tries disallowed. But, overall, it really couldn’t have gone much better.”