Lee Radford: Selection decisions for Castleford Tigers' Super League opener against Salford Red Devils have been tough says new coach

Tigers kick off their Betfred Super League campaign at home to Salford Red Devils in two days’ time.

They have some long-term injuries, including Sosaia Feki, Jacques O’Neill and Callum McLelland, but Radford has a strong squad to select from and insisted

“It has been tough, I am still deliberating now.”

He said: “There’s been four or five decisions where if I go the other way it wouldn’t be too detrimental to the side that takes to the field.

“That’s a credit to the squad.

“There’s plenty of factors gone into the decisions - how well they’ve turned up in pre-season, how they’ve responded to what we’ve been doing and obviously performances in [pre-season] games.”

Radford wants his players to be excited, but not emotional going into Friday’s clash.

Several players will be on debut and it will be Radford’s first competitive game as coach since March, 2020.

But he said: “I watched their [Tigers’] last game of last season, which was an emotional game.

“It was [previous coach] Daryl Powell’s last game, it was plenty of senior blokes’ last game for the club and I think some of them were crying before they went out on to the field.

“Going into a game like that, with that mindset, before you know it you can be running in quicksand after 10 minutes - you are emotionally spent.

“It is really important we are excited by it and not nervous - there is a difference, I think.”

Friday is the first of 27 league rounds, but Radford stressed Tigers want to lay down a marker early on.

“I think in the first four or five rounds you tend to find out about yourselves,” he said.

“You want to tweak some things after that.

“There’s going to be plenty of mistakes and things that go wrong for us, but it’s how we correct that.

“I expect Salford to come and throw a bit at us in the first game and I think it’s how we respond to that as well.

“We are going to cop some challenges and it’s how we all come together collectively and come out of the other end of those which is going to be intriguing for me.”

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