Castleford Tigers excited for Hull KR clash despite injuries Adam Milner says

It is Tigers’ only warm up for their Betfred Super League opener against Warrington Wolves at Emerald Headingley two weeks later.

Sosaia Feki (Achilles) and new signing Suaia Matagi (calf) are already on the long-term casualty list, Danny Richardson, Liam Watts, George Griffin and Greg Eden won’t be risked and James Clare is still recovering from off-season knee surgery.

But Milner said the players who will feature - including recruits Lewis Bienek, Niall Evalds and Jordan Turner - are itching for a game.

“I think everyone’s been starved of rugby over the last few months and we, as players, are certainly looking forward to getting out on the field and putting all the hard work we’ve done over pre-season into a game,” he said.

“It has felt like the longest pre-season we’ve had in a while. We usually get a little break over Christmas, but we’ve been going at it for nine weeks now and when it gets to this time of the year you’ve done pretty much all the hard work you can do and you are itching for a game and to challenge yourself.”

Despite their injury worries, Milner is excited about what Tigers could achieve this season.

“The new signings have been a great acquisition to the squad and we probably needed some time spent on the training field because we’ve been such a structured team in the past, the new rules and everything that went on in the game last year probably caught us off guard a little bit,” he said.

“We have had to adapt our game a little bit and having spent a full pre-season putting all our plans and structures into place, the way we are looking at the moment, we are benefiting from that.”

A live stream of the game can be booked by logging on to https://www.facebook.com/events/3827651073950348/.

Castleford Tigers: from Bienek, Blair, Evalds, Foster, Graham, Hepi, Holmes, Massey, Mata’utia, McShane, Millington, Milner, O’Brien, Olpherts, O’Neill, Peachey, Robb, Sene-Lefao, Shenton, Smith, Trueman, Turner.

Hull KR: from Quinlan, Crooks, Minikin, Kenny-Dowall, Hall, Abdull, Vete, Parcell, Sims, Takairangi, Linnett, Hadley, Litten, Lawler, King, Minchella, Storton, Dagger, Lewis, Ryan, Keyes, Mather, Johnson, Tate, Keinhorst.

Referee: Robert Hicks (Oldham). Kick-off: Sunday, 3pm.