After today’s defeat to St Helens which leaves the Castleford Tigers with two defeats from two to start the season, Lee Radford admitted that he didn’t see this poor start to the season coming.
Radford said his side were in the right mind set in pre-season and hinted that the problems caused by the off field incident with Joe Westerman perhaps a distraction that prompted their poor first half against Hull FC.
Radford said: “I didn’t see that coming. The pre-season was good, we showed up in the right mind set in pre-season. But with that going off in the background, you’re not in the sheds when they’re talking about that, or in their living room so I had no gauge on that.
“I don’t want that to be an excuse and the response this week was good.”
In terms of why the Tigers suffered defeat to St Helens today, he said the game plan wasn’t executed:
“The plan we had was get down field and kick from a good place in the field and not have to kick from deep but that penny didn’t really drop.
“The plan was to play expansive and try and get down field and like I say kick in a good position and not have to kick from deep.
“The plan was that we didn’t have to score every set but when there are thousands of people cheering you on, you can get excited.
“We didn’t see too much ball because of those errors, we would make a break and then let them attack us on our own line. A funny old game.”