No respite on the injury front for Castleford Tigers

Tigers went into their Easter Monday defeat at Catalans Dragons without nine senior players and lost Michael Shenton and Junior Moors during the game.

They will both miss Saturday’s trip to Wigan Warriors, leaving Tigers down to “the bare bones”, according to Powell.

Full-back Calum Turner and fellow youngster Jacques O’Neill, a hooker, have been drafted into Tigers’ initial 19-man squad.

Centre Tuoyo Edogo and forward Nathan Massey are also included after not playing on Monday.

“Michael Shenton’s got an ankle injury [which] doesn’t look great,” Powell confirmed.

“Junior Moors [who will serve a one-game ban tomorrow] got a nasty challenge on a line break he made and he doesn’t look great either.

“All we can do with both of them is keep our fingers crossed they are not as bad as we fear.”

Powell added: “There’s some more scans coming up for Jesse Sene-Lefao, Oliver Holmes and Alex Foster, but none of them is looking great.

“We are not getting a lot of good news at the moment that’s for sure.

“Matt Cook looks a little more favourable and we’ll just have to wait and see when we get the more detailed information in the next week.

“We’ve got none of these players coming back for this Saturday.

“Potentially, Nathan Massey may be okay after he had to miss the Catalans game, but we are down to bare bones.”

Tigers have lost five of their last eight games and Powell admitted his team are in a “tough situation”.

He revealed: “I said to the players straight after Monday’s game ‘you have got to stay positive, pull together and keep working hard’.

“We’ve just got to be realistic with what we’ve got and we have to find a way of playing that suits us and gets us wins.”

Australian centre Cheyse Blair, signed from Melbourne Storm, is waiting to receive a work permit and will be cleared to fly to England when that arrives.