Castleford Tigers boss confirms NRL half-back interest with ‘positive signs’

Castleford Tigers head coach Craig Lingard has labelled his side “unrecognisable” from the one at the start of the campaign, and has confirmed that the club is in talks with a starting NRL half-back.

The Tigers sit tenth in the league, and have only won one game since July – against Hull FC – but do look a lot better than the side that conceded 50 to Huddersfield Giants and 60 against both Wigan Warriors and St Helens earlier in the year.

Speaking on the final few games of the season, Craig Lingard said, via The Yorkshire Post, in the pre-game press conference ahead of a clash against St Helens: “If we can get a victory or two then brilliant.

“Hopefully that would be a positive end to what I think has largely been a positive season with some bumps in the road. The development and progression we’ve shown this year from where we started last November, it’s unrecognisable.”

Craig Lingard confirms Castleford Tigers talks with NRL half-back

The Tigers have just one new confirmed signing for next season, with versatile back Zac Cini signed from Parramatta Eels.

Speaking on recruitment, Lingard said: “We’ve identified a number of targets we believe are right for the club and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can get some of them over the line.

“The frustration sometimes is because you know how difficult the market is to bring people in and sometimes it’s a real small window to get these deals done.

“I don’t want to have to persuade people to come to Castleford. People have got to want to come to Castleford for the right reasons.

“I’ve said before that if it’s someone coming over from the NRL to play two years at Castleford and go back to the NRL for a starting position, I’m not bothered about that because if they do, it means they’ve been successful for us and we’ll probably be higher up the table with the opportunity to attract higher-quality players.”

This week, reports that Castleford Tigers had made contact with Zac Cini’s teammate, half-back Daejarn Asi, emerged.

Asi has started 14 NRL games this season, including in each of the final seven rounds, and appears to be much more favoured by Trent Barrett than he was by Brad Arthur.

With that in mind, Lingard continued: “With the targets we’ve identified and are hoping to get across the line, if we can get them into the country and our group for the start of pre-season, I’ve got no doubt we’ll be stronger than this year.

“There are some real positive signs with the targets we’re looking at bringing in and have spoken to. Daejarn Asi is the sort of player we are looking at, those people who have played the NRL games that he is.”

Lingard also suggested that the club are “as close to 100%” as is possible to being certain of a Super League place next year, saying this wasn’t a reason for players being reluctant to sign on for 2025 any more.