Castleford Tigers head coach Danny McGuire has batted back talk of play-offs after his side’s 48-16 win over Salford Red Devils.
It looked an ominous start for the Tigers who barely touched the ball in the first few exchanges but they managed to release that pressure by scoring on their very first attack with Tex Hoy being the man to cross over.
The Australian full-back would score two more as the Tigers went on to score eight, taking a 24-0 lead into half-time and then holding off a possible comeback to win 48-16.
It marked a stark contrast to their dismal showing at Magic Weekend when Wakefield Trinity beat them and even though it was a win against bottom of the table Salford, it was a game where you saw little pieces of what Castleford can do.
Head coach Danny McGuire agreed, applauding his side when speaking post-match on Sky Sports: “We did some really good things. I’m really pleased, our game and sports is about results and it’s about winning. We got the win and there are some things there that we practised that we’ve done really well.
“Our preparation this week was really good and I think we carried that into some of our actions today so I’m really pleased. There are some bits we need to tidy up as well, which is always the case but overall, really happy with the effort and the intensity.”
Conceding two tries straight out of the gate after half time wasn’t on McGuire’s game plan but his side’s response to it impressed him, as did the defence in the first-ahalf.
He explained: “I thought we showed some steel as well, I thought we defended our line really well, especially in the first half, but then we were able to take out opportunities.
“At times this year, we’ve not able to sort of marry both up together, we would be good in one department and then not so good in the other. I’m really pleased with some of our attacking players today.
“It wasn’t perfect, we’re striving for it, but we’ll take the result, we’ll take 48 points and we’ll build to a big game next week.”
It marked his side’s third win of the season and sees them six points off the play-offs which is far from insurmountable giving that there are still sixteen rounds of the season left, however, he quickly silenced any talk of Castleford Tigers making the play-offs when asked about it.
“We’re just going to take each week which is an old cliche but we’re not looking too far ahead,” he confirmed.
“We’ve got a local derby and a big challenge next week. We’ve got a target in-house that we’re after that will pull us there or thereabouts, but we know there’s a process and we know there’s lots of things in front of us and we’re not going to get too carried away.
“We’ve played well today, we’ve done some really good things, we’ll review it, we’ll learn and we’ll try and get better for next week.”
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