Daryl Powell aiming to freshen up squad against Leigh

When Castleford take on Leigh on Friday night, it will be just a week after the Tigers’ 100-minute victory over Hull KR in the Challenge Cup.

Despite head coach Daryl Powell stressing that his players are raring to go, he will be switching things around for round three of Super League.

“We thought about freshening it up anyway; obviously Niall Evalds didnt play last week,” Powell stated.

“We’ve got a couple of decisions left to make on players who have got knocks, but we will leave that until the end of the week.

“We’ve trained today and the boys were fine; there’s a couple of wounds in there as you’d expect with every game, but we’ve got one session left on Thursday and then we’re back into Super League which we’re looking forward to.”

The Centurions have failed to win a game all year so far, but Powell isn’t expecting an easy ride – though the Castleford boss is happy to be back at the Jungle at last.

“It’s going to be a tough game, we’re not expecting anything different.

“It’s awesome to be back home, it’s been a while now and it’ll be great to get back down here and in the not too distant future you can see fans coming back in too, fingers crossed.”

With three wins from three in 2021, Powell was keen to underline that the disappointment of 2020 is long behind his playing group.

“The disappointment is firmly behind us, winning is obviously a great habit to have and there’s a much better feel about the group this year.

“We’re in good shape physically; last season is last season and it’s history, we’ve got to focus on what’s in front of us.”