ANDRIES Ulderink has spoken of the 'big challenges' facing Reading FC as they enter a defining run of fixtures.

Royals are knocking on the door of automatic promotion and look certain to secure a Championship play-off spot at the very least.

But their resolve will be severely tested in the coming weeks as Jaap Stam's men are set to face most of their chief promotion rivals.

Reading travel to Huddersfield Town tomorrow night when a victory would see them replace the Terriers in third place in the table.

Royals then take on leaders Brighton & Hove Albion at the Amex Stadium this Saturday (5.30pm ko, live Sky Sports) and also face second-placed Newcastle United and fifth-placed Leeds both at home plus sixth-placed Sheffield Wednesday away in the weeks ahead, with a fortnight's international break sandwiched in between.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow's trip to John Smith's stadium, Ulderink admitted: “Tuesday and Saturday are big challenges.

“We’ve got five very interesting games and big challenges before the international break.

“It is a big compliment for the team that we are in this position to have these big challenges, starting with the game against Huddersfield.

“We are going game by game, we don’t look to see where the opposition are in the table. We always want to try to dominate the game.

“That’s what we’ll try to do. Of course it’s not always going to happen how you want, it’s not as easy as that.

“But we’ll go by the same principles and we’re very confident of getting the right results.”

Stam has had to cope with a mini injury-crisis recently as skipper Paul McShane, Tiago Ilori, Joey van den Berg, Callum Harriott, Stephen Quinn and Deniss Rakels have all been unavailable.

But Royals boss has received a major boost ahead of their daunting run of games with McShane, van den Berg, Quinn and Rakels all set to return.

Ulderink says a break in fixtures last weekend due to Huddersfield's 0-0 draw against Manchester City in the FA Cup third round was of huge benefit to the squad.

“To be fair, the last two games cost a lot of energy,” he said, referring to the nailbiting 3-2 win against Brentford and hard-fought 0-0 draw with Barnsley, also at Madejski Stadium.

“You saw that in the last 10 minutes of the game against Brentford that they were really tired, so a couple of extra days will help us to get fit and recovered again and to be ready for the next games.

“We’re in a normal rhythm, we’ll train on Saturday and Sunday we’ll be off. We’ll train on Monday and then travel to the north.

“It’s great to see that even right at the end of games when players are really tired, the players still have that fighting spirit.

“But when I look at the squad, everyone looks fresh again after a day off.”

Reading will be looking to seal a league double over Huddersfield having won 1-0 at Madejski Stadium in September.

Roy Beerens scored the decisive goal on 41 minutes after Terriers saw Rajiv van la Parra red carded 15 minutes earlier.

Ulderink added: “What I remember from that game is that we had some very good football and dominated big parts of that first half; we created some chances and went 1-0 up, and that they got a red card in the first half.

“But in the second half with 10 men they gave us a very tough game. We know what they are capable of.

“You saw that in the game against Leeds which they played at home, they had a lot of energy and don’t give up.

“They have scored in the last minute in a couple of games, so it’ll be very interesting on Tuesday.”