Good as Gold - amateur club Stanningley help ex-Leeds Rhinos star Ashton get back on track

Golding joined Huddersfield Giants from Rhinos last autumn, but has yet to play a competitive match for his new club after suffering a hamstring injury in a pre-season game at Wakefield Trinity.

The Jamaica international missed Giants’ six fixtures before rugby league was shut down in March because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but is hopeful of being fully fit when the sport resumes.

And with Huddersfield’s home Betfred Super League round two game against Leeds being postponed in February, there is a chance his first Giants appearance could be against his old club.

Golding has been training alone since coronavirus made mass gatherings impossible and revealed Stanningley - where he played as a junior and is now joint first team coach, alongside Bradford Bulls’ Jordan Lilley - have provided a helping hand.

The National Conference club have allowed him to borrow gym equipment for the duration of lockdown and he said: “They said ‘take what you need Ashton, we will support you in this’.

“I have managed to get hold of a rower, set of dumbbells, a bench, barbell and weights. Huddersfield have been in contact as well to offer stuff to me so I am well stocked up.”

Of his recovery Golding confirmed: “I am running at the moment, keeping moving and keeping going. It is hard because players are on furlough and we’re not allowed to keep in touch with the physios and things like that, but I think I am diligent enough to understand when I need to run, when I need to rest and recover properly.

“I think if you have a mindset of train the hardest, eat the best and recover the hardest you can’t go too far wrong in this situation.

“That’s where I am with my recovery. I think if the league reopened tomorrow and they said we are playing whoever in a week’s time I would put my hand up, but I have just got to be smart at the moment while I’ve got time on my side.

“I want to become a better version of myself when we start up again.”

Golding played only once for Rhinos last year, scoring a brace of tries in a Coral Challenge Cup win over League One Workington Town.

He spent most of the season on dual-registration with Featherstone Rovers - helping them reach the Championship Grand Final - before signing for Giants on a three-year contract last October.

“We’ve got a good bunch of blokes at Huddersfield,” he said. “I am fortunate to be mates with a lot of them and best mates with the rest, so it is a great situation to be in.”

Lockdown has given Golding extra time to spend with his young son and work on a new venture, a coffee shop he is opening at Horsforth, near Leeds.

It has also made settling into a new environment tough, but he stressed: “Whatever the next technology is, we’ll be on there talking and keeping up to date.

“That is always going to be there, though it is difficult not having that face-to-face interaction at a time when personally I have come into a new team and been meeting new people, forging new relationships and gaining trust. It is a difficult situation for most people, but trying to forge that again in two weeks - or however long we get - is hard.

“It comes with its challenges, but we have to be level headed about it and understand the big picture, rather than just focusing on ourselves.”

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