Beleaguered Huddersfield Giants coach Paul Anderson has questioned whether the demands on Super League players is becoming too much.
Injury-hit Huddersfield suffered another big blow during the 38-16 weekend home defeat to Widnes with the loss of in-form half-back Jamie Ellis with a dislocated collar bone.
He joins half-back Danny Brough (dead leg), prop Eorl Crabtree (groin), full-back Scott Grix (shoulder), prop Craig Huby (hand), full-back Jared Simpson (ankle), centre Joe Wardle (quad) and half-back/hooker Kyle Wood (quad) on the Giants’ casualty list, while hooker Luke Robinson has just been forced to retire with a long-standing hip problem. That comes on top of the sudden departure of England international forward Brett Ferres for disciplinary reasons.
Although the Giants have by far the longest list of senior injuries in the Super League competition, they are not alone when it comes to the number of serious knocks that are being picked up.
Among those who are also suffering are Friday’s opponents Leeds Rhinos, who will line up without first-choice men Danny McGuire, Carl Ablett, Tom Briscoe, Stevie Ward and new hooker Beau Falloon.
As a result, the Headingley showdown (8.00) is the battle between the competition’s current bottom two who are still looking to break their Super League XXI ducks at the fourth attempt.
And Anderson admits the injuries are at the heart of the West Yorkshire clubs’ woes.
“I said the other week when we lost our opening game at St Helens that I’d never experienced an injury situation quite like this,” said Anderson, who is desperately scouring the world market in a bid to bolster his squad.
“And it’s just kept on getting worse!
“In a contact sport like rugby league injuries are inevitable – there’s always a fair bit of luck on the injury front – but it’s the scale of them that’s hitting us so hard.
“I know we’re the club that’s suffering the most right now, but we’re certainly not alone when it comes to the number of players who are missing through injury.
“There are clearly a number of reasons why it’s got to this situation, and we need to take a long, hard look at this.
“At the heart of this might be the fact we’re asking far too much of the players. The demands are just way too high.
“Because of the current structure of the competition, it meant we finished last season in the first week of October and were back in for pre-season training at the start of November.
“That involved hard, physical work to prepare for the season ahead, and was followed by the trial games in early January and the start of the new season a month later.
“A schedule like that is bound to take some sort of toll, so may be we need to start to look at the fixtures and whether we’re playing too many games.”
