Former Huddersfield Giants boss Ian Watson has revealed why his exit from the club left him feeling “bitter.”
Watson was the Giants’ head coach from 2022 to partway through 2024, when he was replaced by Luke Robinson, initially on an interim basis before he got the reins full-time.
Following that, he took a completely new career path, starting to coach rugby union in Seattle, USA, and did so for just over a year before he was recruited by Hull KR and Willie Peters.
Watson is now loving life at the Robins, and has admitted that the stint in the 15-man code allowed him to view things differently, and he has now come to terms with why the Giants let him go.
Speaking to The Bench podcast, the 49-year-old reflected on his time in Claret and Gold, and was asked what he could have potentially done differently if he had the chance.
“There’s always things,” he said. “You learn things, and again, going to Seattle, that helped me breathe and look at things a little bit differently from a step-back position as well.
“I look at it quite fondly. It’s weird. We managed to change the club around to get to a Challenge Cup Final, and we finished third that year [2022] and then the year after we thought we recruited right to be strong.”
After progressing well in 2022, the following season saw Huddersfield fall out of the play-off spots and finish the season in ninth place.
There was some renewed hope in 2024, with Giants winning seven of their opening 10 matches, and with a Challenge Cup semi-final spot booked, things looked to have started well.
However, “it didn’t feel like we were winning,” said Watson. “And maybe that was me more than anything else.”
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Former Huddersfield Giants boss reveals reasons for exit
The former Huddersfield boss believes that his man management could have been a lot better, with his sole focus of improving the side coming at a detriment to the morale of the squad.
He said: “I tried not to be [negative], but I look back, and I ask people now, ‘Do you think I was?’ Do you think that I’ve bred that through to some of the players a little bit? So, that’s where you’ve got to take accountability.
“I just wanted the group to win. I wanted us to be better, and I wanted to conquer this [assumption] that Huddersfield we’re a bottom-end team, that we could get to the top end as well.
Following on from that seven from 10 start, Watson would win just one of the next nine matches – a 24-18 victory over Hull FC.
The boss was shown the door just days before their upcoming game against Leigh Leopards, meaning that his final result as Giants boss would be a 48-0 away defeat to Warrington Wolves.
“I would have liked to have gone into that [Leigh] game, but the results had gone down. We started picking up a hell of a lot of injuries…
“At the time, I was kind of bitter about that, because I was just so obsessed with trying to make them a real force, I was probably overlooking the human side of the game a little bit.
“I was just like drive, drive, drive to try and be better rather than taking a step back and breathing a little bit.”
