Michael Lawrence makes his 250th career appearance for Huddersfield Giants against Castleford Tigers.
The popular 28-year-old forward – who made his debut as a substitute against Warrington back in 2007 – is keen to mark the occasion with a bright performance and, ideally, two points to the Giants’ tally in the Super 8s.
The Giants, of course, are bidding to bounce back from successive defeats to Wakefield Trinity and Warrington and while the chance of a top-four finish is gone, Lawrence says no-one in the squad wants to round off the campaign in downbeat fashion.
“It’s always a good battle against Cas and they will be pushing and trying to crank things up to get ready for their semi-final in about a month’s time,” said the club legend.
“The top four is a game too far for us now, but we are focused on our performance and wanting to play really well.
“We feel in the last four or five months, with our performances, we have earned a lot of credibility and respect and we don’t want to undo that in our last few performances.
“All of us want to put in good performances and finish the season well.
“We have competed well in the last two games and, by being smarter here and there, could have come away with the points, so we want to make sure this week we give ourselves the best chance of winning.”
Lawrence still remembers going on for the last few minutes against Warrington on debut, replacing Chris Nero and touching the ball only once.
He thought to himself, ‘this Super League is quite easy!’
Since then he’s been a stalwart in Claret and Gold and won the League Leaders Shield in his hometown colours, and he believes the club are well set to progress under new head coach Simon Woolford in 2019, which will be his testimonial year.
“Since the new coaching team have come in I’ve felt really excited – probably the first time in a couple of years I’ve felt really excited about what we are building at the club,” said the man nicknamed Bruno.
“The coaching team, players and playing group we’ve got make me really excited about finishing this year, pre-season and then what we can achieve next year..
“I think we will go from strength to strength and get even better.”
Lawrence – who could come into direct competition with former teammate Joe Wardle in the Castleford game – says preparations are starting to ramp up for his testimonial, with a committee now in place.
“Just last week I started to try and chase sponsorship for my jersey and, so far, the support has been really good,” he explained.
“Game wise I am trying to sort out Bradford Bulls.
“It is close by and hopefully they will get promoted this year and bring a good crowd over, so that’s something we are working on.
“Bradford would be my first choice because of it being a derby and the time of year – you don’t want to go too far for a friendly – and it’s looking like it might be our first friendly on January 13, but that is all still to be confirmed and it might be another month or so before we can do so.
“But I’m really excited about how things are shaping up. My committee are together and starting to plan events, although it’s a bit difficult until we know the fixtures. Once we do, we can start to nail more things down.”
