LUKE ROBINSON will get a blast from the past while looking to the future this weekend.
The Castleford Tigers interim coach will return to Huddersfield Giants, where he spent 19 years as a player, assistant and head coach, on Saturday for the final round of the season.
It will be an emotional occasion for the Giants as they bid farewell to the Accu Stadium, ahead of a move to Dewsbury’s FLAIR Stadium.
And while his focus will be squarely on ending the campaign with a victory against the club he started it in charge of, Robinson says: “It will be very strange for me – it’s somewhere I made my home for a very long time.
“They’re taking Huddersfield out of Huddersfield for a little while. I’m hoping for the fans and everyone involved in the club that they will get back to Huddersfield, but I don’t know how long that will be.”
While the Giants uproot, Castleford are planning major changes of their own, with a large turnover of players to come in the off-season as well as the appointment of a new head coach.
Robinson was brought onto the coaching staff last month and watched a third straight defeat last Thursday, 32-22 at Bradford Bulls, which makes the Huddersfield fixture all the more important.
“There have been a lot of good noises around what’s going on next year, but we want to finish this season strongly and use it as a bit of a springboard,” he said.
“The higher up the table we can finish, the better it is for everyone.”
Recent weeks have provided Robinson with an insight into what Castleford need to improve going forward.
“There’s not one specific area of the programme that we need to go after,” he added.
“There are a multitude of different facets. There are marginal gains in loads of different areas.
“There are a lot of good people at Castleford who are working extremely hard. I just think we can be a little more efficient in the way we do things.
“Everyone is on board with that and wants the club to succeed. Hopefully the future is bright.”