Ian Watson hungry for Challenge Cup glory after sorting ‘issues’ at Huddersfield

Ian Watson knew the recipe for success at Huddersfield but first he had to pick out the bad apples.

Much was expected of the Giants after they managed to prise Watson away from Salford ahead of the 2021 season but they underperformed for much of it and finished well outside the top six.

A reshuffle of his squad, with major departures and a significant injection of fresh blood, has enabled Watson to turn things around and he will lead Huddersfield out at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday with high hopes of guiding them to a first Challenge Cup success for 69 years.

“It was always going to be different last year,” Watson said ahead of the showdown with Wigan.

“Obviously there were issues there, otherwise they wouldn’t have been bringing someone else in, so I needed to find out what those issues were so that we could go forward on the back of it.

“What I found was that there were a lot of talented players but there were a lot of individual players there and they played individually as well.

“It wasn’t a team, whereas you can see with this group, they play as a team, they buy into everything as a team.”

Watson is too diplomatic to name the individuals concerned but he clearly did not see eye to eye with captain Aidan Sezer and second rower Kenny Edwards, who failed to finish the season and were quickly out of the door by the end of it.

Sezer, who was a strong contender for Man of Steel in his first season with the Giants in 2020, recovered from an ankle injury sustained playing for the Combined Nations All Stars against England in June but was not picked again by Watson while Edwards was ignored after serving a 10-match ban for putting his finger up an opponent’s bottom.

Sezer joined Leeds while Edwards was sent on a