Castleford Tigers v Hull KR: George Lawler finally gets chance to face former club

The teams are preparing for their third meeting this season, after two big wins for Rovers at Craven Park, but Lawler picked up a suspension in the game before both previous encounters.

He managed to get through Tigers’ most recent match, at Catalans Dragons two weeks ago, without upsetting the judiciary and is looking forward to having a long-delayed crack at his former side.

“I am really excited to go up against some old faces,” Lawler said.

“I can’t wait to get going.”

The Hull-born 26-year-old – who spent seven seasons with the Robins before switching clubs in pre-season – admitted to getting “a little bit of stick” from his former team-mates following his second ban.

But stressed he isn’t concerned about what reaction he receives from via the visiting fans.

He conceded he is not sure what to expect, but insisted: “Stuff like that doesn’t really bother me.

“I did what I did for Hull KR and I’ve got nothing but great memories [of his time] there.

“Now I play for Castleford and I am fully into that, so I am not too bothered if I don’t get a good reception.”

Both teams are on the back of a painful loss, Tigers having been crushed 44-12 in France, while the Robins’ Betfred Challenge Cup dreams were shattered by a 25-4 semi-final drubbing to Huddersfield Giants six days ago.

“They have just come off a big loss so they will be raring to go and we are exactly the same,” Lawler stated.

“We have had an extra week to prepare and we are really looking forward to it.”

Tigers have something to prove after being beaten 26-10 at Rovers in February’s Super League encounter and 34-10 in a Cup tie there last month.

Lawler is confident they are in better shape now, but accepts a repeat of the performance in the south of France won’t be acceptable.

“We have made a lot of improvements,” he said.

“We got three wins from the Easter period, but it just wasn’t good enough when we went to Catalans.

“It is a big game for us to start getting back to winning ways.”

Of what went wrong in Perpignan, Lawler felt they failed to do “the little things” right.

He said: “The biggest thing in the Catalans game was we didn’t help ourselves at all. Penalties and errors were a massive part of our game that went wrong that night.

“I think if we can look towards sorting them out we should be all right. Giving away penalties and things like that are on our own backs.

“We need to tidy that up, but we have definitely got a good enough squad. It is just about getting the little things right and playing as a team and those things will come.”