Castleford Tigers head coach Danny McGuire understands fans’ frustrations as their team took another step backwards in their 26-4 home defeat to Catalans Dragons.
After the encouragement of a victory over Salford in their previous match it was back to the drawing board in some ways as the Tigers displayed some worrying defence work and failed to adapt to awful wet conditions.
It led to much criticism on social media and with a second successive home crowd of only just over 6,000 Cas have got some winning over to do of their supporters.
“There were some bits that were worrying,” admitted Cas boss McGuire.
“We have moments where we look like a good team and moments where we don’t know what we’re doing.
“Concentration, fatigue, pressure – I don’t know. It’s a few things that contribute to that and we need to get on top of that.
“Any try conceded is a concern, but when it is just one guy taking six over the line then it is worrying. And then a dummy-half just showing a dummy and going straight through, that’s concerning.
“We’re not doing quite what we want to do, but we’ve just got to keep working.
“The only way I know is working, learning, trying to get better every week.
“We’ve got a short turnaround now so we haven’t got much time to lick our wounds, we’ve got to get ready and go again.”
Cas were not helped by the loss of Jeremiah Simbiken with a hamstring injury to add to the players already sitting the game out.
The back rower is likely to miss Thursday’s game at home to in-form Hull FC, but the Tigers are likely to have Joe Westerman back after he has recovered from an illness and another forward Dan Okoro should be available again.
They also have experienced prop Brad Singleton in their ranks after he joined from Salford last week. He went straight into the team and may be joined by at least one other addition with the Tigers still on the lookout for more players.
“Brad has not played for a while and had some good moments and some mistakes,” said McGuire.
“He added a little bit of steel to us which we needed. We potentially need another one or two now. Recruitment is ongoing but we may need to add a bit in the next week or two – if not, we will work with the boys we’ve got.”
Leave a Reply