'Backs to the wall': Castleford Tigers need to show true colours v Catalans Dragons says Andy Last

Tigers have lost five of their six matches so far this season and are on the back of a 38-0 home drubbing by Warrington Wolves.

“Resilience and fight” are two traits Last wants to see from his team and he insisted: “It’s in times of adversity, when your backs are to the wall, you find out what character you’ve got.

“At the moment some questions with regards to their character aren’t being answered in the right way. The players are aware they need to respond.

“It’s a tough place to go, but we are looking forward to the challenge and expecting a better performance than last week.”

Catalans suffered their first defeat of 2023 at Leeds Rhinos last Saturday and the Tigers boss added: “It will be two teams wanting to bounce back.

“We’ve learned some lessons and the biggest area we need to improve is we have to complete more.

“We've got to try and get our completion rate up to around the 80 per cent mark and give ourselves an opportunity to be in the contest.

“At the minute, we just aren't doing that on a consistent basis. That has been a real focus this week.”

Eliminating “uncharacteristic errors and decisions” will be crucial to Tigers’ hopes, Last reckons.

“We've identified those areas we need to improve, but it's very difficult because you can't simulate pressure in training,” he said.

“You can speak about it and I think the important thing is getting the players to understand the game is all about building pressure and sustaining it, but then also being able to deal with it when pressure is being applied to you.

“We are not building enough pressure and not sustaining enough pressure on opponents and then we're showing some real softness and lack of resilience when teams put pressure on us.

“We've got to do better in those situations. We've identified it, spoken about it and practised for it, but the proof is always in the pudding - when it comes to the 80 minutes we’ve got to deliver.”

Tigers flew to Perpignan on Thursday without forward Liam Watts (shoulder injury) and Adam Milner (suspended). Mahe Fonua (concussion) and George Lawler (sternum) are back in contention.

Sam Tomkins, Romain Navarrete and Tanguy Zenon return to Catalans’ squad, but Tyrone May, Mickael Goudemand and Manu Ma’u drop out because of injury.

Catalans Dragons: from Morgue, Davies, Keighran, Laguerre, Pearce, McMeeken, McIlorum, Bousquet, Whitley, Seguier, Garcia, Da Costa, Navarrete, Rouge, Chan, Romano, Dezaria, Johnstone, Scimone, Tomkins, Zenon.

Castleford Tigers: from Eden, Turner, Fonua, Faraimo, Widdop, Miller, Lawler, McShane, Griffin, Edwards, Mellor, Westerman, Massey, Sutcliffe, Broadbent, Vete, Mustapha, Smith, Matagi,Hookem, Qareqare.

Referee: Jack Smith (Wigan).

Kick-off: Saturday, 5pm UK.