{"id":650812,"date":"2026-06-21T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650812\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T16:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T16:20:13","slug":"huddersfield-giants-coach-confirms-stars-imminent-return-as-biggest-challenge-assessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650812\/","title":{"rendered":"Huddersfield Giants coach confirms star’s imminent return as \u2018biggest challenge\u2019 assessed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\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\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Jim Lenihan has confirmed that the biggest challenge he faces in his new job at Huddersfield Giants is simply instilling confidence into his players, with the Australian revealing that heads are even going down at training, such is the club\u2019s form.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Thursday in his pre-match presser<\/a> to preview today\u2019s (Sunday) game against St Helens, Lenihan admitted that confidence is a key issue within the playing group with his side\u2019s mental fortitude not where it would ideally be at.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s as much mental at the moment,\u201d he revealed, when asked what the biggest challenge at the club was currently.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven at training, if something goes wrong then we feel a little bit of failure and it\u2019s like once there is a little bit then everything has gone and it\u2019s panic stations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to make mistakes at training and that\u2019s okay. It\u2019s an opportunity to learn from it and get better from it and go again, and that\u2019s as much a resilience piece as it is working hard mentally and physically.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sir Kevin Sinfield, play-off race heats up and who can stop Wigan Warriors?\u00a0\u2013 Click here to watch the latest episode of the Serious About Rugby League Show.<\/a><\/p>\n

Huddersfield Giants boss welcomes St Helens challenge<\/p>\n

The Giants travel to take on St Helens<\/a>, who are themselves out of form having lost three in a row, but the Saints did beat Huddersfield just a week prior to Lenihan\u2019s arrival in England.<\/p>\n

On the prospect of facing Saints, Lenihan said: \u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ve won in their last three games so I\u2019m sure they\u2019re really energetic and excited about an opportunity to play us and try and get a W in the box.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re looking forward to the opportunity of playing Saints. They\u2019re a quality side, a good team, well-coached, they know what they\u2019re doing, we get an opportunity to measure where we are at the moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not all about the winning and the loss, we\u2019re going out there to hopefully put in a good performance and face a really good side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aiding Huddersfield in their efforts to beat Saints is the prospective debut of new signing Zane Dunford, who Lenihan said was: \u201cHe\u2019s just another piece of the puzzle that helps us get what we want to be long-term, someone who is physically and mentally in a good spot to really want to commit to us and want to work really hard. He\u2019s just another piece that puts us into the positive pile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another piece of the puzzle who could soon return is winger Adam Swift with Lenihan confirming that the former Saint is the \u2018most imminent\u2019 returnee of the lengthy Huddersfield injury list, with the Giants boss confirming: \u201cHe\u2019s nearly had a full week of training this week which has been really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d say if he get through this week and next week he trains then he\u2019s a big chance of putting himself in the picture of being in the team.\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":"Jim Lenihan has confirmed that the biggest challenge he faces in his new job at Huddersfield Giants is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-650812","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\/650812","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=650812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}