Castleford Tigers coach warns of 'short-term pain' ahead of Super League clash at Catalans Dragons

Tigers are without a win in four Betfred Super League rounds and coach Craig Lingard has named only 20 players - rather than the usual 21 - in his initial squad for tomorrow’s (Saturday) game at Catalans Dragons. Tigers have put the emphasis on getting things right off the field this year, as they bid for an A-grade under the sport’s new IMG ranking system and Lingard urged everyone connected with the club to be patient.

“It is difficult at times because you want your team to win every single week,” he conceded. “That’s clearly not going to happen this year because we are where we are; we are in this rebuild and where the game is with IMG - whether you agree with it or not - promotion and relegation isn’t decided on the field.

“I suppose it has allowed the club this year to make sure we concentrate our efforts or finances off the field to make sure there’s a Super League future secured for Castleford. If we did it the other way around and put all the money into the squad this season and it came to the end of the season and the club hadn’t done what they needed to do off the field and the IMG points aren’t there and they get relegated, then what’s the point?

“We have got to make sure we are looking forward and safeguarding the club. There is going to be some short-term pain, hopefully for the longer-term gain. There is a plan behind the scenes, it is a three-year plan and we are looking to establish a team.”

Lingard is confident of being able to bring in more experienced players after this season and reckons his rookies will be better for what they go through in 2024. He added: “It is about developing the players we’ve got, but because these players are young and experienced, they are going to make mistakes.

“It is going to take time for them to learn and develop and that’s our job as a coaching staff - to make sure we better these players week on week. It isn’t going to happen overnight. It is going to be a slow burner. We’ve got to have patience and make sure we stick to the plan we’ve got, because there is a plan in place.”

Lingard feels last week’s “completely unacceptable” 50-8 home defeat by Huddersfield Giants has overshadowed some positive signs in the previous three games. He said: “We’ve lost those games, but with the players we’ve got, for 70-80 per cent of the game we’ve been really competitive, other than a 10-minute period when it has got away from us a little bit.”

That makes getting a response to the Giants drubbing his priority for Saturday. “As a minimum we’ve got to be eight out of 10 for effort and work rate,” he stated. “If we do that, we will compete. We made 19 errors last week and we can’t do that again. We’ve got to have a response effort-wise, intelligence-wise and game management-wise. If we get that, we won’t be too far off.”

Catalans Dragons: from Mourgue, Davies, Laguerre, Yaha, Fages, McMeeken, Bousquet, Sims, Seguier, Garcia, Sironen, Navarrete, Rouge, Ikuvalu, Dezaria, Johnstone, Castano, Abdull, Maria, Aispuro-Bichet, Fernandez.

Castleford Tigers: from Hooley, Simm, Broadbent, Wood, Senior, Miller, Lawler, Mellor, Westerman, Horne, Milnes, Putt, Hall, Tasipale, Robb, Martin, Kibula, Vete, Hill, Johnson.

Referee: James Vella (Sydney). Kick-off: Saturday, 5.30pm UK.