New Castleford Tigers coach Danny Ward targets '1 per cent wins' ahead of huge clash v Wakefield Trinity

Previous boss Andy Last was sacked on the evening of Tigers’ home defeat by Huddersfield Giants two weeks ago.

Confirmation of Ward’s appointment five days later gave him little more than a week to prepare for Friday’s relegation four-pointer at Wakefield Trinity and six games to keep pull Castleford clear of the drop.

“Coming in now, it’s not about reinventing the wheel or ripping up the playbook,” Ward said in his first press conference as coach, on Thursday.

“It’s just looking for little tweaks in attack, defensively and individually, where we can be a little bit better.

“We are trying to get those one per cent wins from the boys that can turn games on their head and get some victories.

“We’ve had a really good week at training and we’ve said to the boys they just need to bring it tomorrow; you’ve got to be accountable to each other, do your job and hopefully work as a team and get where we want to be.”

Trinity are bottom of the table on points difference from Tigers, but Ward reckons his men are underdogs this week.

They have lost all their away games this term, while Trinity are on a four-match winning run at Belle Vue.

In 2006 Ward played for Tigers in a final round winner-takes-all shootout at Wakefield which ended with them being relegated to the Championship for the second time.

This week isn’t quite do or die and Ward stressed: “I don’t want to put any extra pressure on the boys, they know how important this game is.

“We can just focus on ourselves as a team and individual performances. They boys have got to prepare like they should every week for a Super League game.

“You have got to be on the money and be at your best every week. Whatever the outcome, there’s still five games to go after this, a lot of rugby to be played and a lot of points up for grabs.

“All we can do is take one game at a time, all our focus is on Wakefield and getting the two points.”

Ward has been working with rugby union club Rosslyn Park since stepping down as London Broncos coach in 2021.

He had steered them to promotion in 2018 and they were within a game of retaining their top-flight spot the following year.

He was linked with Tigers before Lee Radford took over ahead of the 2022 season and again after he was sacked early this year and confirmed: “It’s no secret I’d have been interested in the job previously.

“It’s a club I played at and am passionate about doing a good job at. It is an exciting group of players to come in and take charge of, the fans are fantastic and the atmosphere is always unbelievable.

“It is an exciting club to be at and I am buzzing to be in charge now and able to take us forward in the next six games.”

Ward will be a strong favourite to be appointed on a long-term basis if he does keep Tigers in Super League and his return to coaching puts him back in the shop window.

But he pledged: “I just want to do the absolute best I can right now for Cas. I am fully focused on the next six games, being the best I can be and throwing my all into it.

“I am all in for these six weeks and I’ll try and leave no stone unturned to do my very best for Castleford. Whatever happens in the future will sort itself out then.”

Of how his the past week has gone, he added: “The first few days was madness, I don’t think I slept - I was on the phone, organising things and it was an absolute whirlwind.

“But this week has been really good, I couldn’t have asked for anything more from the staff or the players. The players have reacted well and brought a lot of energy to the field sessions. They’ve bought into the little tweaks we’ve brought in and what we are trying to do and look at.”