Blake Austin’s surprise Castleford Tigers absence explained

As Castleford Tigers fight Wakefield Trinity for survival they brought in the likes of Leeds Rhinos star Blake Austin to pull themselves out of trouble and after a win over Wakefield Trinity it seemed to be working.

But they stalled against St Helens but injuries did not help with new boss Danny Ward forced to reshuffle his side completely with Joe Westerman playing out of position.

This is because of a number of injuries with Will Tate in a boot after the game as Ward explained:

“He’s in a boot at the minute, he’s in a boot, he’s going to go get X-rayed. It was hard on Will because he’s just coming today to the starting team. He’s been training really well and won his opportunity and then sees that opportunity and then for it to be cut short, it’s really disappointing for him.

“So we’re all gutted for Will but hopefully it’s nothing too serious and he can get fixed up. It was a little bit of disruption then, flipping Jordan onto the wing where he’s been doing such a good job in the centre, certainly defensively, his experience there has been massive but it is what it is.

“You get injuries in the game and people have to chop and change but you know, first thing is hopefully Will is not too bad.”

He also explained why Blake Austin was absent:

“Blake didn’t quite pull up as we expected from the game last week, he had a bit of an issue in his hip that wasn’t quite right and it was one of them, he wasn’t going to be fully fit for this week so we decided we made that call yesterday and moved Westy into stand-off.

“I thought he (Westy) did a great job but then you lose Westy in the middle as well so it was a bit of a tough one. So yeah hopefully Blake will be okay for a week’s rest and full treatment.”

And Greg Eden who scored a hat-trick against Wakefield: “Greg, yeah again just picked up a bit of a knock in the game last week. Thought it was OK. Moved alright during the week training, but didn’t quite open up.

“He’s pretty quick, he’s a high-speed player, and when they’re not quite fully opened up in training, they might do in a game as well, there’s worries that it could cause more damage, and we weren’t fully confident in it.

“So we’ve got someone like Will there, who was weighing in the wings, fully fit, raring to go. So we thought we’d make that change as well rather than risk Greg.”