Newcastle Thunder 6 Castleford Tigers 42: Cas' cruise to big victory in final warm-up

A number of senior first team players took the chance to impress on their last opportunity to catch the eye of head coach Daryl Powell ahead of the big kick-off next Friday with the scoring shared around as the Tigers ran in nine tries. Cas led from the second minute as Tuoyo Egodo got to a high kick by Jamie Ellis and knocked the ball back for James Clare who then sent the supporting Alex Foster over.

Matt Cook crashed over for a second try soon after and it was 14-0 after Egodo finished a move he had started in his own half when combining with half-back Cory Aston to score.

Aston had trouble converting in the difficult conditions, but was able to add one goal to the early tries. Ellis, was next to score as he opened up the home defence with a clever dummy and raced over for a try converted by Aston.

Garry Lo then raced in for his first try in Castleford colours to make it 24-0 at half-time.

The Tigers scored again straight after the interval as Ellis put a searching grubber kick through and centre Egodo got to the ball first for his second touchdown of the day.

England man Mike McMeeken created another score with a pass that sent Greg Minikin over to score. Newcastle were torn apart once more soon after when young forward Brandon Douglas broke through tackles on a strong run. Ellis then came up with a long pass to send Jy Hitchcox over out wide.

Newcastle then put some points on the board as prop Liam McAvoy powered over and Shaw added the conversion.

But Cas had the final say as Calum Turner showed good feet to get past several would-be tacklers for a well taken try and Aston’s third conversion completed the scoring.

Newcastle Thunder: Ritson; Agoro, Brown, Calland, Sidney; Young, Shaw; McAvoy, Simons, Aldous, Ollett, Luckley, Fitzsimmons. Subs: Pointer, Capper, Blair, Craig, Turland, Rennie, Aldous, Lloyd.

Castleford Tigers: Hitchcox; Clare, Egodo, Storey, Minikin; Ellis, Aston; Cook, O’Neill, Maher, Foster, McMeeken, Clark. Subs: Lo, Douglas, Ray, Turner, Sweeting, Peachey.

Referee: Scott Mikalauskas.

Attendance: 1,022.