Craig Lingard has spoken on Castleford Tigers’ possible recruitment plans revealing the club are active in the loan market but also hopes to land a “marquee name” this season.
Castleford Tigers are one of the two winless sides in Super League this season along with London Broncos and a lack of recruitment is a key reason for that.
The Tigers had the objective of making their squad younger which saw them recruiting several players that were surplus to requirements at other clubs, with three such players coming from Hull KR in the form of Sam Wood, Rowan Milnes and Luis Johnson.
Lingard himself admitted last week that “70%” of his squad “aren’t established Super League players”, and this week he told BBC Radio Leeds that the club do intend to make signings but are limited by their current situation.
He explained: “We’re in the situation that we’re in and we’re fully committed to it and we’re fully committed to making sure that we get to the end of this and developing the players and then at the end of the season we’ll secure the Super League status with the club doing what they need to do off the field and then we can start bringing some bigger name people in, some sort of marquee names that we want to bring in.
“We might be able to do some of that this season, hopefully we can. If we can’t then we’ll look at what we’ve got and we’ll do the best that we can. We’re confident in the players that we’ve got that we can build them into Super League players. Not everyone’s going to get there, but we’re hoping that the majority of them will do and they’ll be there with us for this journey over the next two or three years.”
Will Castleford Tigers make immediate signing?
Credit: Imago Images
So whilst there could be marquee names arriving at Wheldon Road in the future, Lingard also explained that the club are actively seeking and searching for additions to their squad at the moment.
He confirmed: “We’re always looking, we’re always asking the questions. The issue that we’ve got in the immediate is the Challenge Cup next week. Teams are not wanting to let people go out for the Challenge Cup to get them cup-tied.
“It might be another couple of weeks down the line before we potentially get any in, if any is made available. Even then you’ve got to rely on other teams there with their squad depth and the injuries at the end. So that’ll be a movable and fluid thing day by day, game by game.
“We’re constantly asking questions, we’re constantly talking to other clubs and agents and stuff like that. So we’re trying to put feelers out there to get some experience, bodies in, just to get us through this little period that we’re in.”
The Tigers play tonight against Salford Red Devils with details of that game and all other rugby league games on TV can be found here.
Huddersfield Giants
Transfer news: Super League star provides major update on future
