HUDDERSFIELD GIANTS star Jake Connor will play for the club’s reserves tomorrow night with head coach Ian Watson explaining just why.
Watson named his 21-man squad for the clash against Leeds Rhinos, with Connor absent and the Huddersfield boss wants the maverick to get fitter.
“He didn’t play against Warrington, we had him in the squad against Warrington but like I say the squad was basically the squad, what we had there as well as obviously Jake being involved.
“But this week we’ve decided that the best thing for Jake is to just get to build on what we’ve been doing in training really and getting them miles and getting extra strength and work into his leg and his knee.
“He’s been doing a lot of leg sessions, he’s been doing a fair little bit of running, some extra stuff he’s been doing himself in terms of rugby and running.
“So he’ll play in our reserves now tomorrow night just basically to tick some more boxes now to get him fit.”
Watson does, however, believe that Connor is fitter now than when he was at Hull, it’s just about priming him for that number one position.
“I think in many ways he’s fitter now and in a better condition than when he was at Hull – but they wanted him to be that individual spark, we want him to be a team player and to work hard for the team so we need to make sure we get him in the right condition.
“If you look at his physique it’s as good as it’s been in the last few years, he just needs more kilometres put into his knee to be a fullback.
“But his own conditioning is better than it has been for a while, it’s just getting everything else back into him.”
