Castleford Tigers coach slams Liam Watts red card

Castleford Tigers coach Craig Lingard has addressed the controversial red card for Liam Watts in their defeat to Wigan Warriors after they had led 4-2.

Speaking after the game, Lingard questioned the decision to send him off.

“I know there’s a big thing about head contacts in the league and trying to make the sport safer, which we need to do, but I just don’t know what we expect Liam Watts to do there,” he said.

He added: “You can understand if somebody flies out of the line and they whack somebody around the head deliberately or just carelessly, you can wear that; but I can’t wear that. I just can’t wear it.”

He also opened up on how he feels he can’t coach his players to avoid similar situations in the future: “As a coach, how can I coach my players this week for that to not happen again? I always say that if I can coach somebody to be better and not do that, then we’ll do that. I can’t coach anybody not to do that.”

Castleford Tigers coach questions why Wigan Warriors star wasn’t sent off

Lingard went on to question why Harry Smith avoided a red card for a tip tackle on Luke Hooley just before Liam Watts’ red card.

“What’s the difference between that one and the Luke Hooley one, what’s the difference between the contact that happened on the Wigan player to Harry Smith picking somebody up and dropping him on his head?”

He added: “I don’t want Harry Smith to get sent off, but it has a massive impact on the game.”

“I’m hoping that I won’t need to appeal it, I’m hoping that there’ll be no charges to answer but we’ll obviously see won’t we, depends on how they interpret it. If there’s no charges to answer then it means that somebody’s got something wrong.”