Castleford Tigers boss hails recruit's 'awesome' debut

The full-back made his debut for Tigers in their 10-0 Betfred Super League defeat at St Helens, just six days after joining them on loan from Toronto Wolfpack.

“I thought he did really well,” Powell said of O’Brien, who had a brief loan spell at Castleford seven years ago.

“He only had two training sessions with us and then we lost one of our halves [Jake Trueman] on the morning of the game.

“That made it really difficult - he has been working in combinations with the halves and then one of them goes.

“I thought he was great, he has been out for four and a half months from a training environment and then he slots in and plays like he did.

“I think he will get better, obviously, picking up the way we want to play, but I thought he was awesome to say he’d only had two sessions with us.”

Trueman was due to play against Saints, but withdrew on the morning of the game because of a back injury. Powell said: “He jumped for a ball [at training on Saturday] and jarred his back. Hopefully he is going to be okay, but he was in a bit of pain on Sunday morning when he came into the club.”

Meanwhile, Powell has called for referees to use their judgement on sin-binnings after Grant Millington was shown a yellow card early in the second half against Saints.

The front-rower received a one-match penalty notice, ruling him out of Tigers’ next game, after the Rugby Football League’s match review panel studied the incident and charged him with grade A dangerous contact.

But, speaking after the game, Powell insisted: “That’s not a sin-binning.”

He said: “I understand shoulder charges, but I think it’s not right to have a blanket sin-bin on something like that.

“We conceded points in that period and it takes energy out of the players.

“I just think it spoils the game. You have got to be able to use your brains on something that’s a sin-binning.”

Tigers have no fixture this weekend after their Coral Challenge Cup sixth-round tie against Hull was postponed.

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