Castleford Tigers coach Ryan Carr has revealed his full-back plan after Australian star Blake Taaffe was ruled out for the entire season.
Pre-season signing Taaffe suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury during last Sunday’s Super League round one defeat by Wigan Warriors.
Former Leeds Rhinos and Huddersfield Giants full-back Ashton Golding joined Tigers this week on a deal until the end of the current campaign, but Carr said he won’t be in the number one spot for Saturday’s visit to Toulouse Olympique, despite being named in the 21-man squad.
Instead, 20-year-old academy product Fletcher Rooney will get first dibs on the vacancy. Speaking at his weekly preview press conference today (Thursday), Carr said “With Blake’s injury comes an opportunity for Fletcher Rooney to come into the team and we have got a lot of faith and confidence in him.
“He has been learning off Blake all pre-season and hopefully we can take his game to a new level now.
“Fletch will get first chance at it. He has trained all pre-season in that position and has been spending a lot of time with Blake on and off the field and picking his brain and trying to up his positional play. He has done it before at the highest level and it’s an exciting opportunity for him.”
Golding had been without a club since leaving Giants last November. “He is a great addition to both our playing squad and our culture,” Carr, who coached him at Featherstone Rovers in 2019, said.
“He brings great maturity and experience to the group. I had a relationship with him prior and we had a coffee and a catch up and I explained a little bit about where we are heading as a club and what we are trying to build here and where he fits into that.
“He was really excited by that meeting and it happened pretty quickly from there. We bought the person, not the player.
“Last year at Huddersfield he played nine, lock, centre, wing – he can do it all really. The versatility is a massive drawcard for us.”
The Castleford Tigers coach added: “The deal had been done prior [to Taaffe’s injury]. We haven’t got a large squad this year and we understand, footy being a contact sport, things happen and injuries are unavoidable at times. We need to have depth.”
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