Reaction: Castleford Tigers coach Lee Radford proud after 'best effort of season' against Huddersfield Giants

Radford felt Friday's 26-18 defeat of Huddersfield Giants was Castleford Tigers' best win of the season so far.

The victory lifted Tigers to fifth in Betfred Super League and Radford was "proud" of the way his side battled through, under heavy pressure at times.

Castleford, who are now on a three-game winning run, also suffered a series of injury setbacks and Radford said: "I am really proud of their effort, again.

"They really turned up for each other and in the first half it looked like they enjoyed defending and wanted to defend.

"That's something that's taken a while to come, but we have got to keep hold of that and maintain it."

Radford felt the weight of possession against his side made the result the most pleasing of his time in charge.

"They had 48 sets of six and we had 22, which is a phenomenal amount of defending," he added.

"We defended our tryline and came up with the answers and we have players in our team who can come up with tries."

Tigers also had to deal with a series of injury setbacks.

Radford said: "We had Macca [Paul McShane] on the bench who was carrying a dead leg and got a whack on it again straight away.

"Truey [Jake Trueman] is busted with his knee, George Lawler had a back spasm, Adam Milner is struggling with his knee, Kenny Edwards towards the end was on one leg.

"The effort was phenomenal."

Of Trueman, Radford added: "Hopefully it's not so bad.

"It looked and he played on and then it locked again..

"Hopefully Matty [Crowther, Tigers' physio] can work his magic this week."

Niall Evalds had been due to return from a biceps injury, but was ruled out three hours before kick off because of a chest infection, so Greg Eden - originally due to be 18th man - stepped in at full-back.

Radford confirmed full-back Ryan Hampshire's season is over after a second scan on the knee he injured against Catalans Dragons last Sunday revealed anterior cruciate ligament damage.