Huge few days ahead in determining the next Castleford Tigers coach

It is a huge period ahead in the future of the Castleford Tigers.

The Tigers currently have Andy Last in charge as interim coach after Lee Radford’s exit.

He has been open about wanting the role permanently and can underline his credentials for that position tonight against Salford Red Devils.

After that he is set for a meeting in the coming days with the higher ups.

“Hopefully that’s the case. Thursday night is another opportunity to either get closer to the job or further away,” Last said On BBC Radio Leeds.

“Like I’ve said for three or four weeks now the club are doing their due diligence and they’re going through a process, which I understand. Hopefully once they’ve done that I’m the person who gets the job on merit, not because of necessity or because it’s the easy option, but because I’m the right person for the job.

“I’ll be speaking with the club in the coming days and hopefully what I have to say and what I see as a project for this club will be along the same lines as the board of directors.

“They’re going through a process but hopefully once they have I’m the right person for the job.

“I think performances have been building. I wasn’t happy with the second half against Wakefield, we played too conservative and didn’t ask enough questions of Wakefield. We’ve spoken about that in our review and I’m hoping we’re a bit more expansive and with a little more creativity against Salford.

“It’s important we get that balance right because if you turn over the ball against Salford, they’re a team that can damage you but we need to make sure we’re asking questions of them.”

He also gave his assessment of the Red Devils: “They’re going okay, I think Paul Rowley has done a decent job with the injuries. That spine of Brierly, Croft and Sneyd haven’t missed many games and they’ve managed to get Ackers back against Leigh.

“They’re a dangerous team, well coached. Paul has done an excellent job at Salford and you can see the imprints of what he’s done at other clubs, they’re very very good on the transition and very dangerous on plays one, two and three at getting the back five behind the ball and being prepared to paly.

“They’re a lot better defensively than they get credit for. Teams have struggled to break them down, they work exceptionally hard for each other. The likes of Stone and Wright in the back row do a lot of unseen work for their team.

“They’re a tram we respect, a good side and we’ll need to perform well to beat them.”