Jake Connor to play for Huddersfield Giants reserves as Ian Watson explains absence

Jake Connor will play for Huddersfield’s reserve side this week – but the Giants have no intention of sending him out on loan. Ian Watson confirmed the maverick star will feature at Headingley against Leeds Rhinos, but in the pre-cursor to the Super League clash between the two sides after being left out of the 21-man squad for the pivotal contest.

Connor was dropped for the Giants’ last outing against Warrington Wolves, having last featured in the Magic Weekend hammering at the expense of St Helens. He will now look to convince Ian Watson of his worth while playing for the reserves, which kicks off at 17:30 on Friday night.

Explaining the move, Watson praised Connor for his work in training during the mini-break the Giants have had, explaining that there had been a focus on improving his fitness with an eye on him playing fullback.

Watson said: “He didn’t play against Warrington, we had him in the squad, but the squad was the squad. The best thing for Jake this week is to build on what we’ve been doing in training. He’s been doing a lot of sessions, extra things, running, he’ll play in our reserves now tomorrow night to tick some more boxes to get him fit.”

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On Connor’s response, Watson added: “They always want to play first team, but Jake is really good, he really understands where we’re at and what he wants to get back to. We were speaking to Jake about it last week, we said it was going to be a project we built into and he was doing that. It takes the pressure off him, he trained on the opposite team at fullback, he’s doing a hell of a lot more running than beforehand. Hopefully it puts him in a better position so when he does come back he’s fitter than when he comes back.”

A number of clubs are currently on the lookout for players to enhance their squad and Connor’s time out of the Giants first team is thought to have caught the interest of several clubs. However, Watson insists there are no plans for him to leave the club.

“If we send him out to another club they might not be looking at those same things or they have an idea of what they want or where they want to get him,” Watson said.

“We want him to do the things we need him to be able to do what’s best for the team at Huddersfield and if we send him out we can’t keep an eye on him. Jake has been, throughout his career and Hull will probably tell you this, they tried to build a team around Jake and him as an individual to win games. But that’s not why we brought Jake here, we brought him to be a team player and improve certain areas. What we need him to do is certain things that sometimes are not natural with such a talented attacking player.

“For us, we need to work on the things to get him in those positions to do that. What people don’t know as well about Jake, and it’s probably a credit to Jake, he played six weeks for us with a broken thumb when we were down on troops. He’s put his hand up for this club, what we can’t do is break Jake, we have to do the right thing by him.”

The England international had a disrupted pre-season due to knee surgery which saw his return to action delayed but despite that, Watson insists his fitness is not an issue.

“I think in many ways he’s fitter now and in a better condition than when he was at Hull. But they wanted him to be that individual spark, we want him to be a team player and to work hard for the team so we need to make sure we get him in the right condition. If you look at his physique it’s as good as it’s been in the last few years, he just needs more kilometres put into his knee to be a fullback. But his own conditioning, if this makes sense, is better than it has been for a while, it’s just getting everything else back into him.”