• Former Giant returns from injury to give Rhinos a major lift • ‘I’ll go out and give it my all for Leeds, that’s all that matters’

Almost seven months to the day since they played out perhaps the most dramatic game in Super League history, Huddersfield meet Leeds on Friday in entirely contrasting circumstances, with Brett Ferres knowing more than most how the tables have turned since last September.

Ferres was in the Huddersfield side who narrowly missed out on the League Leaders’ Shield thanks to Ryan Hall’s late try, and which ultimately secured top spot for Leeds. But Fridaymarks a first return to the club since his controversial exit during the off-season.

Ryan Hall seals Leeds top spot with last-gasp try against Huddersfield Read more

The England international was placed on the transfer list following an off-field misdemeanour, eventually being transferred to the Super League champions at the start of this year. However, two of the competition’s recent heavyweights now find themselves struggling at the wrong end of the table in 2016 as opposed to the lofty heights of recent years, with Ferres insisting that the spotlight should be on what he describes as a “must-win” game for Leeds’ top-eight ambitions, not his own return to the John Smith’s Stadium.

“I’ll probably not get a great reaction, obviously,” he conceded. “It is what it is; I’m not worried about it, I’ll just go out and give it my all for Leeds Rhinos, that’s all that matters. If you look at the league table, it obviously doesn’t look too pretty for us at the minute, so we need to start knocking off some wins. We say every week we need to win but this is a must-win for us.”

Last weekend’s 38-34 defeat at St Helens was the sixth time the defending champions have lost by four points or fewer this season, and while Ferres admits the performance in itself yielded plenty of positives, he acknowledged the stage has been reached when results take preference over performances. “These last few weeks we’ve been getting better and I think we should have won at Saints – there were a lot of pleasing signs,” he said.

“But we’ve got to forget that and concentrate on the here and now – these two points are vital for us. It’s the difference between the top sides and the bottom sides at the minute; the likes of Wigan and Warrington are getting those wins, and we need to kick on and grind out a result.”

Ferres is set to return from a calf injury to give the Rhinos a significant boost, but they will still field a heavily weakened lineup on Friday night. Zak Hardaker will miss out through concussion, Brett Delaney is injured and the captain, Danny McGuire, has still not recovered from a quad setback suffered this month. That will mean another reshuffle for the Leeds coach, Brian McDermott, who could hand a debut to the young forward, Cameron Smith, in the absence of so many frontline first-team players.

Meanwhile, Chris Chester has called on Wakefield to exploit a Widnes side struggling for form and ensure the Wildcats solidify their new-found position in Super League’s top eight on Friday.

Wakefield moved out of the bottom four on Monday evening courtesy of Salford’s six-point deduction for breaching the salary cap, and as they prepare to face a Widnes side who have lost their last five league games, Chester believes his team need to take full advantage of their opponents to strengthen their place in the table; victory would take them level on points with the sixth-placed Vikings.

“They haven’t played particularly well in the last few weeks and Denis [Betts, the Widnes coach] has come out and said they’re low on confidence at the minute,” Chester said. “We’re the opposite and we’re in eighth spot now after events this week so it’s ours to lose. We want to keep pushing on, looking up and not over our shoulders for once.”