Castleford Tigers boss Lee Radford delighted with ‘outstanding’ first-half display at Leeds Rhinos

Tigers ran in five tries to lead 28-0 midway through their second win under Radford, in his seventh game as coach and then held off a mini-revival by Leeds after the interval.

“We were outstanding,” Radford said of his side’s performance in the opening 40 minutes.

“In the second half, we spoke about scoring first and putting them to bed, but unfortunately we didn’t get that start so it gave them a little bit of a lifeline for a period.

“But I thought the work we’d done in the first half caught them up.

“I’ve been saying for a while our performances have looked better the last few weeks and once we get some troops back on the field we can start to look up.

“[Saturday] has probably reinforced what I was thinking.”

Radford added: “What is absolutely key for us is our D [defence].

“We signed a lot of attacking players in the off-season, but we have got to focus on our D.

“If we get our D right, there’s points in this team.”

Adam Milner made his first appearance of the season for Tigers and Niall Evalds, Jake Mamo, Liam Watts, Adam Milner and Nathan Massey also returned following injury.

Radford praised Tigers’ line speed and ruck control and admitted getting some first choice players back was a huge boost.

“Having some blokes in there who are better at it helps,” he said.

“I think there’s a reason you pay somebody £25,000 a year and a reason you pay somebody £150,000.

“The more one to 17s you can keep on the field, the better chance you’ll give yourself throughout the year.”

The quarter-final draw was made at half-time of Saturday’s tie and Tigers will travel to Hull KR for the second successive year.

They won a thriller in golden point there last season and Radford is already looking forward to the tie on the weekend of April 8-10.

The former Hull FC coach said: “I am over the moon with that – I can walk to the ground!”

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