'We are incredibly fit' - Daryl Powell praises Castleford Tigers' conditioners after marathon effort

Tigers needed 19 minutes of extra-time to beat Hull KR in the Betfred Challenge Cup last Friday, Gareth O’Brien eventually landing the golden point drop goal at Castleford’s ninth attempt.

It was a punishing encounter and Tigers had to dig deep after trailing 22-6 and 32-18, but Powell is confident about his team’s physical condition.

“We trained [on Tuesday] and the boys were fine,” he said.

“We trained as normal so we are okay.

“We’ve got one session left, on Thursday and then we are back into Super League which we’re looking forward to.”

Powell stressed: “I think we are incredibly fit.

“The conditioning guys have done an awesome job.

“To play for that long and still be going strong, I thought we dominated extra-time and to have that many attempted drop goals, you have to be in good field position.

“I thought we defended better in the extra-time period than we did in the first half, so there are some positives to take out of that.”

Powell will name an initial squad today and added: “We’ve got a couple of decisions to make on players who’ve got knocks, but we won’t know until later in the week on those.”

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