'Pleased for them': Andy Last hails Castleford Tigers fans, admits relief after crucial win v Leeds Rhinos

Tigers battled back from 10 points behind with 12 minutes left to beat Leeds Rhinos 26-24 at the Magic Weekend in Newcastle.

It was their second win of the season against Leeds and only their third from 15 competitive games in 2023.

“I’m absolutely over the moon,” Last said. “It’s a sense of relief, it’s probably the first time this year I’ve really, really felt the pressure of needing the win.

“I think when an opponent’s suffering a little bit of adversity - we’d seen they had some players missing - it felt like a significant game for us as a group, that we need to make sure we win this one.

“When we were 10 down [we were thinking] is it going to slip away from us, but I always had the belief that if we could get the ball into our best players’ hands, we could cause them some problems.

“We did that. I thought Joe Westerman and Liam Watts were very good through the middle and Gareth Widdop at full-back played his best game of the season, by some distance.

“I am really, really please for the supporters, because they’ve done it tough. There were 2,000 of them there and we gave them something to sing about.”

Last held a meeting with the squad after Tigers’ Betfred Challenge Cup loss to Hull FC two weeks ago and reckons that was a turning point.

He has urged his players to put the disappointing first half of the season behind them and insisted: “Some of the stuff we’ve worked on in practice was there for all to see.

“Our execution was very good, we were slick on the edge and we started to nail the opportunities we created. We picked the right pass and scored some really nice tries.”