Lee Radford explains why pre-season doesn’t excite him as he reveals “frustrations”

Lee Radford is back at Castleford Tigers after some time in Samoa after the World Cup and is getting into the mix of pre-season.

He revealed that his players are itching for the season to start.

“I think post-Christmas some players are sick of pre-season and are itching to go. Hopefully we will progress nicely in terms of the quality of the team we put out with some guys getting some important minutes,” he said to Tigers TV.

He went on to say how pre-season will kick start into another phase:

“We probably look at more detail of how we want to play with and without the ball. It throws up some things that we will probably want to eradicate and some things that we want to keep doing well.”

That said, he explained why he isn’t excited by pre-season:

“No one has dropped two points in pre-season, no one has been dropped in pre-season. I don’t want to sound like a pessimist, but I never get too excited at this time of season.

“The blokes have been fully committed to getting better. Some sessions could have gone better but some have been really good.

“Pre-season is to get us ready for a successful season and it certainly has been that.”

Equally, he opened up on the difficulties young players are having in pre-season but believes it will improve them:

“For some of those young lads it was perhaps a bit too early but I want to increase our production line. We want to be more consistent moving forward, they will be better for it. They have been exposed a few times in pre-season and it has frustrated them and some of the senior guys.

“Like all young players, you learn from you mistakes and they will go on to have successful Super League careers.”