Castleford Tigers: Coach Lee Radford provides update on plans for new captain

Long-serving skipper Michael Shenton retired at the end of last season and most of Tigers’ leadership group have also left the club.

Pre-season training began yesterday and new coach Lee Radford is looking for leaders to emerge over the next three months.

“People like [Peter] Mata’utia, [Oliver] Holmes, Shenny [Shenton] and Millo [Grant Millington] have all gone,” Radford said.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what they [potential leaders] are about and what their standards are like in pre-season.

“I obviously have my own idea about what a pre-season looks like, but with regards to what we are and the culture and all that, you don’t know that until you sit at the table, do you?

“Who stands up in that leadership group will be interesting, but we’re a senior squad - when you look at the team, we’re not a young side so there will be some contenders.

Radford confirmed winger Sosaia Feki, who has played less than half a game since joining Tigers from Cronulla Sharks ahead of the 2020 season, will not be available for Betfred Super League round one.

Feki, who has a year left on his contract, suffered a calf injury in the 2020 pre-season, damaged a knee in his only appearance and then tore an Achilles tendon just before the 2021 campaign began.

“He’s not ready,” Radford confirmed. “He’s four or five months off yet - he needs a change of luck, does the lad.”

Radford, who revealed he was close to signing Feki during his time in charge at Hull, added: “It’s a hard one to take, but he’s in good hands with Matty [Crowther, Tigers’ physio’] and we’ll see how he goes in his rehab.

“Whether he’ll be on the wing or not I don’t know, we’ll have to wait and see, but he needs to get fit first and see where he’s at and then can make that decision.”

Jacques O’Neill (lower hamstring) and Jordan Turner (shoulder) have undergone surgery, but Radford said: “That’s nothing major.”