Huddersfield Giants head coach Rick Stone is looking for even more improvement from his side as they take on Hull KR tomorrow night.
The Giants will go into the John Smith’s Stadium clash on the back of an impressive 28-16 away win at Widnes, while the Robins arrive in town having been beaten narrowly 18-16 by Catalans Dragons in Perpignan.
Stone is eager to add to the two points won at Widnes and said: “It’s fair to say that we want to push on from the last game, we did a lot of good things at Widnes.
“There is still a lot of improvement in us, but we got a good win and we can take some confidence from that.
“We improved our performance and we stuck at the job for the whole of the game, so they were two good points which was very pleasing.
“For us the job now is concentrating on our process, we have got to try and reproduce what we did last Friday night and hopefully find a little bit more in the coming games.
“The goal now is to find that little bit more within the team.
“We respect every opponent we play each week and the same applies to tomorrow night.”
Stone has made just one change to the 19-man squad he selected for the 28-16 win at Widnes in the last round of Super League.
Centre Jordan Turner, who missed the success at the Halton Stadium after sustaining concussion in the previous round at Wakefield Trinity, returns.
Not included in the squad is back row forward Michael Lawrence, who had been hoping to shake off a hamstring injury but has not made the cut.
Former Melbourne Storm star Ryan Hinchcliffe is free to play after his sin-binning at Widnes for a dangerous tackle was not put on a charge by the RFL disciplinary board.
However, the Giants are still without forward Daniel Smith, who is serving the second game of a two-match ban for a dangerous challenge in the 22-4 defeat at Wakefield.
Hull KR coach Tim Sheens has made two changes to his squad that faced Catalans Dragons, with skipper Shaun Lunt ruled out and Danny Tickle dropping out of the 19 – in their place come James Donaldson and George Lawler.
Stone is expecting a different kind of contest against a team who stepped up from the Championship last season.
“It is a bit of a different challenge against Hull KR,” said Stone. “ I have watched their last couple of games and they are a side who definitely have some strike and some big powerful blokes who can carry the ball.
“They can certainly do some damage, but they have also conceded some points as well this season, and I feel there might be a few tries scored tomorrow night.
“For me our focus is making sure we get our own game in order.
“We have had a bit of a disjointed start what with injuries and a couple of suspensions, ideally we can get to a point where we can settle on a team and get through a few weeks with the same personnel, but we haven’t managed to achieve that just yet this year.”
However, there is no element of concern from the head coach that he needs to get his side away from Super League’s bottom four as soon as possible.
“I don’t think anyone wants to end up in the bottom four, we have only done that once and it wasn’t a pleasant experience,” said Stone.
“But we are not looking at the table at moment, we are just trying to improve our team week on week and if we get that right then the table really should take care of itself. There is still a long way to go this season, but it is important to try and stay in touch with the leading group.
“If things are desperate it is not always the right recipe for the team to play their best footy, so something to be avoided there.
“We are not looking at it at this stage and all we can do is win as many games as we can in the coming few weeks.”
Stone’s squad could be boosted in the coming weeks by the return of prop Shannon Wakeman.
The Italian World Cup player is out on loan at Championship Dewsbury but is currently out injured, and Stone said he would like to see the 28-year-old see some action with the Rams before he returns to the Giants fold.
“Shannon is still looking to come back from injury, but he is with Dewsbury for 28 days minimum,” explained Stone.
“Ideally I am looking for
Shannon to get some gametime with Dewsbury before he comes back to us.”
