IAN WATSON has admitted he was left ‘bitter’ at his exit from Huddersfield Giants after explaining what went wrong.
Watson, who is currently assistant coach to Willie Peters at Hull KR, was sacked by the Giants during the 2024 Super League season following a dismal of results.
However, the 49-year-old took the Giants to the Challenge Cup Final in 2022 and turned the West Yorkshire club into play-off contenders at one stage.
His end at the Accu Stadium was less than celebratory and Watson has since been asked if he would have done anything differently from his time at Huddersfield.
There’s always things,” Watson told Sky Sports’ The Bench podcast.
“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.
Watson believes that he could have been more ‘human’ during his time with the Giants, explaining that he was solely focused on improving the side.
He continued: “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 the idea that Huddersfield were a bottom-end team, and that we could get to the top end as well.
“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.”