IAN WATSON lamented a “step back” from his Huddersfield team in Saturday’s defeat to Hull KR.
The Giants’ coach was broadly satisfied with the opening month of the season as victories over Leigh and Hull KR sandwiched defeats to leading sides St Helens and Wigan.
But they were comfortably beaten by the Robins on home soil in a 24-12 defeat and Watson admitted it was a poor display.
“There were some fundamental skills where we fell down,” he said.
“There’s no point beating around the bush, there was some really poor stuff in terms of the way we attacked.
“We had one attack and (prop) Chris Hill looked like he was our number seven – he was the one trying to organise the attack! That’s not how we train.
“When we got some field position in the second half we looked a hell of a lot better. The shape looked better.
“You always know against a team like KR, they’re going to work hard and scramble really hard. But if you do the right things for long enough periods, you can post points like we did at the back end of the game.
“But early doors we didn’t do that, we didn’t put any pressure on the defensive line, we didn’t take any energy out of them.
“They came down the other end and scored or at least turned the sets over in the right way.
“First four (games), we were really good in terms of stepping forward every single week. It’s a bit of a bump today, a step back.
“Maybe that was a bluff last week (putting 50 points on Castleford) in terms of the confidence in our attack. Everything was crisp last week.
“This week is more frustrating because we’ve stepped back from where we were.”
