Australian coach Tony Smith is hoping an injection of pace can lift Huddersfield off the foot of Super League.

The Giants have been wooden spoonists for each of their three years in the top flight, but opposition defences have already been warned to be on their guard against speed merchant Andrew Frew.

The 26-year-old former Northern Eagles winger topped his club's try-scoring charts last year and is already setting the pace in England with eight tries in his first five matches - including three in two clashes with St Helens.

"Andrew has been a very successful player in the NRL," said Smith. "I knew what I was getting and that he would score a lot of tries for us.

"He's shown a lot of people that he can play, and it's rubbing off on a lot of people at the club."

Huddersfield rate their new recruit alongside Wigan's Test flier Brett Dallas, and Frew himself was delighted to twice get the better of Saints' Great Britain winger Anthony Sullivan.

Smith added: "He'd be up there in that speed department. I wouldn't like to say who is the quickest, but there are not many in the game - either in Australia or England - that are quicker. He's one of the real fliers.

"The thing about speed is it's really difficult to coach. You can recruit it, but it's really hard to coach players to be faster. Either you are born with it or not.

"We'd be crazy not to try and utilise Andrew's speed at certain times in games, and more so in some games. It's a bit of mix and match. We can't overkill him - he's not our only player."

Frew, a former team-mate of Bulls back-rower Daniel Gartner, rejected offers from London Broncos and Halifax to sign a two-year contract with Huddersfield, and is hoping to extend his stay beyond that.

With 14 tries for an Eagles side that finished second from bottom of Australia's NRL last season, Frew is accustomed to starring in a struggling side, but he expects that to change under the highly-rated Giants coach.

"I decided to sign for Huddersfield mainly because of Tony Smith," he says. "I've worked under his brother Brian, who is very astute at Parramatta, and I've heard things about Tony which persuaded me to come here.

"We had a disappointing start against Halifax, but we've improved 150 per cent since then and we'll improve again tomorrow against Bradford. Very shortly we'll start to win a lot of games.

"I've had a good run so far, I'm pretty happy.

"They told me Sullivan was the fastest man over here, and he didn't do anything last week against me."