{"id":611001,"date":"2026-05-29T21:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611001\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T21:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T21:24:14","slug":"ian-watson-talks-bitter-huddersfield-giants-exit-as-reasons-behind-departure-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/611001\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Watson talks “bitter” Huddersfield Giants exit as reasons behind departure revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ian\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Former Huddersfield Giants boss Ian Watson has revealed why his exit from the club left him feeling \u201cbitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watson was the Giants\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Speaking to\u00a0The Bench\u00a0<\/a>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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always things,\u201d he said. \u201cYou 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look at it quite fondly. It\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

After progressing well in 2022, the following season saw Huddersfield fall out of the play-off spots and finish the season in ninth place.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

However, \u201cit didn\u2019t feel like we were winning,\u201d said Watson. \u201cAnd maybe that was me more than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wigan Warriors selection drama, Bradford\u2019s controversial \u2018no try\u2019 call and Las Vegas Teams revealed \u2013 Click here to listen to the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show<\/a><\/p>\n

Former Huddersfield Giants boss reveals reasons for exit<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI tried not to be [negative], but I look back, and I ask people now, \u2018Do you think I was?\u2019 Do you think that I\u2019ve bred that through to some of the players a little bit? So, that\u2019s where you\u2019ve got to take accountability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted the group to win. I wanted us to be better, and I wanted to conquer this [assumption] that Huddersfield we\u2019re a bottom-end team, that we could get to the top end as well.<\/p>\n

Following on from that seven from 10 start, Watson would win just one of the next nine matches \u2013 a 24-18 victory over Hull FC.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just like drive, drive, drive to try and be better rather than taking a step back and breathing a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Huddersfield Giants boss Ian Watson has revealed why his exit from the club left him feeling \u201cbitter.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":611002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-611001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/611002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}