LUKE ROBINSON cited Huddersfield Giants’ thrashing to St Helens as evidence that “it’s difficult to keep young kids up there each and every week”.
Spine men George Flanagan and Kieran Rush were key to beating Catalans Dragons the previous week but Robinson admitted some of his younger players were playing more than is ideal.
“We’ve got a lot of young players within our group,” said coach Robinson.
“I know Wayne Bennett spoke about this weeks ago saying it’s very, very difficult to keep young kids up there each and every week, and we feel like we have.
“It was the physical battle that we lost – with the ball, without the ball and in that heat.
“Saints are one of the best defensively and they were unbelievably good at slowing the ruck down and some of our players were getting a little bit frustrated with that.
“Taane has held his hand up (for his yellow card for dissent). He understands what he did. Like I say, it’s more out of frustration than anything else, but we have spoken about it.
“It only hurt us, really. As a player, you can’t do it.
“When you’re going up against a Saints side that are red-hot and playing well, and when you go down to 12 men, it’s extremely difficult.
“It wasn’t just that we had a man down, the fact that we conceded try after try in that period really hurts.”
Huddersfield fear that halfback Matt Frawley may have suffered a season-ending ankle injury in the game.
Robinson added: “It’s pretty badly swollen, so he’s going to get a scan. The (injury) jinx continues this year.”