Castleford Tigers provide big update on Jacques O’Neill

Castleford Tigers announced earlier this season that Jacques O’Neill had re-signed for the Club on an initial contract until the end of 2023.

O’Neill previously played for the Tigers from 2019 to 2022 before appearing on ITV’s hit reality show, Love Island.

Before leaving The Mend-A-Hose Jungle, the 23-year-old, who is a proud product of the club’s Academy, featured for the First Team on 29 occasions, scoring three tries since making his debut in 2019.

Jacques will link back up with the Tigers from the 2nd of May due to work commitments and when talking to castlefordtigers.com, he spoke of his pleasure to be returning to rugby league and the Tigers.

“I just can’t wait to be back playing the sport I love again and being back around the ground with the boys. Hopefully, in the near future, I’ll be back playing competitive rugby again because it’s been what I’ve been thinking about doing since I came out of Love Island.

“I’ve always wanted to play rugby again; it’s never been the case that I didn’t want to come back to it. It’s what I’ve loved doing since I was a child.”

Since that signing was confirmed the question has been when will see Jacques on Super League.

Today Andy Last gave an update

“There’s a chance that he might feature. It’s taken a little bit longer to get him up to rugby speed than we anticipated.

“He’s got a little bit of a sore Achilles at the moment and that’s due to obviously the running and the work that he has to do.

“I think Jacques was expecting it to be a little bit quicker than it actually has but he’s gone from 18 months ago almost back to a playing level and then made the decision to pursue over interest with Love Island.

“He’s then dropped back in to wanting to try and finish that journey from a rugby point of view. So he’s taken a little bit longer than he probably anticipated to, but he’s working hard and he’s got his head down and he’s doing what he needs to do.

“So hopefully we may be seeing Jacques participating from a playing point of view but it’s just a slow process.”