Castleford Tigers boss warns of Leeds Rhinos 'threats' but eyes first Super League win

Rhinos have won three of their five Betfred Super League games so far, but are yet to produce an 80-minute performance. Lingard reckons their unpredictable style makes them difficult to prepare for, but has warned his men they need to be alert on every play.

Assessing Tigers’ big city neighbours, Lingard – who has reported mixed news on injuries – noted: “They are a strange team to review and preview; they seem to play different in every single game, but they have threats from everywhere on the park.”

He said: “If you’ve got them coming 10 metres off your own goalline, you think you’re safe and they’re going to be kicking from deep, but a number of times this season we’ve seen them score tries from 80, 90, 95 metres. You don’t know what they are going to do because they are unpredictable, they like the special plays, trick plays and nowhere’s off limits.

“A lot of teams won’t play coming out of their own 20 or 30, but not Leeds. They go against the grain and try to catch lazy defenders so we have been working on staying alive on every single play. If you switch off against Leeds they will find you.”

While Tigers are yet to get off the mark in the competition, form notoriously counts for little in West Yorkshire derbies. Lingard will be hoping for a repeat of last year when Castleford picked up their first victory of the campaign, at the fifth attempt, at home to Leeds.

It is a big game for Tigers as they try to build on last weekend’s Challenge Cup win at Batley Bulldogs and Lingard stressed: “It is always significant for Castleford when they play Leeds. They are our rivals and you want to go out there and put in a good performance. We know how much it means to the supporters and the club so we have got to make sure we turn up and give 100 per cent.

“That is non-negotiable for us. The effort-based stuff has been there over the last couple of weeks, but we are looking to learn and develop through games and manage situations better.

“We are trying to make sure we are learning lessons, but we keep making the same mistakes, particularly from kick-offs and drop-outs when we are not claiming the ball. We need to get better and also we need to start nailing some of our attacking shapes and executions.

“Against Catalans Dragons we broke the line two or three times and had opportunities to score, but didn’t put those chances away. Building on the effort-based stuff, we now need to make sure our quality and execution gets a bit better.”