‘No positives’ – Castleford Tigers boss responds to 12-try demolition

Castleford Tigers have crashed out of the Challenge Cup after being put to the sword by Wigan Warriors in a clash that ended 60-6.

It was a humiliating defeat at home for Craig Lingard’s side and in spite of the club’s injury issues, it’s a loss that the head coach has reacted to negatively, and understandably so.

Castleford entered the game with 15 players on their injury list and that saw them forced into handing a debut to signing Daniel Hindmarsh-Takyi who had been playing in the reserves previously, whilst Matt Peet was able to field a near full-strength side.

It didn’t take long for Castleford Tigers to concede and once the opening try went in through Liam Marshall the floodgates opened, Wigan running in 12 with Marshall bagging four and fellow winger Abbas Miski scoring a brace.

The score raced to 28-0 before the 25-minute mark and despite an Innes Senior try before the halftime hooter to avoid a whitewash, the score got no more respectable with a further seven tries scored in the second forty.

Craig Lingard has now reacted post-match speaking on BBC Radio Leeds stating bluntly that there were no positives to be taken from the game.

“Not particularly, no,” Lingard responded, after having explained where it all went so wrong for his side who had looked to potentially have turned a corner with their win over Salford Red Devils and improved performance before that against Leeds Rhinos.

For Wigan, the victory was marred slightly by the “horrific” injury sustained by forward Willie Isa who had to be stretchered from the field in the first half.

“Very, very ordinary” Castleford Tigers dumped out of Challenge Cup

With a Challenge Cup semi-final at stake, you’d expect that it wouldn’t take much motivating for players to make a fast start but conceding within five minutes and then folding defensively was how Castleford approached the game instead.

Wigan’s reward for the win is a semi-final against Hull KR, but Castleford never got close to dreaming of making it to the semi-final with their defence breached so early and so easily, something that Craig Lingard was incredibly honest about.

He stated: “I think if there is ever a game that shows the difference between the top of the Super League and the bottom of the Super League, that would be it. Wigan were outstanding and we were very, very ordinary.”

Lingard bemoaned his side’s lack of defensive intent, explaining: “I spoke at halftime about it, the game is really simple if you defend tough and well and get the ball back in good positions then it makes the game a lot easier. Unfortunately, we weren’t willing to do the defensive side of the game today.

“Too many times we sat back and allowed Wigan to run at us, and too many people with one-on-one misses. You can talk about the good tries that they scored where they did us for numbers on the edge but ultimately that all comes down off the back of somebody missing a one-on-one tackle or not putting the body in front, which that’s what we’re disappointed in.”

The nature of the loss was so bad that even Castleford Tigers’ massive injury list couldn’t be used as an excuse, Lingard bluntly stating: “There’s ways to win games, ways to lose games and that certainly wasn’t a way to lose a game for us today. Regardless of the players that weren’t playing today, that certainly wasn’t a way to lose a game.”

Tigers’ defensive woes highlighted

It marked the ninth consecutive win for Wigan over Castleford Tigers with the four games across the last two seasons boasting an aggregate scoreline of 176-16 to Matt Peet’s side, a ridiculous 33 tries to just 3.

Today saw 12 of those tries and to that point, Lingard said: “We made it too easy. It was the first 20 minutes for me. You’ve got to impose yourself on a game and we started the game defensively weak and allowed them to score easy tries.

“There’s no line speed there, then as an attacker, you go an extra couple of inches and you carry even harder. We’re tackling on our heels, on our back feet, and it’s a quick play of the ball after quick play of the ball after quick play of the ball, and it was just too easy for them to get us on the back foot.

“Defensively we’ve got to do better. Ultimately there are two sides of rugby league, there’s the attacking side and the defensive side and the defensive side, if you get that right, then your attacking side becomes better anyway.”

It wasn’t as if Castleford’s attack was any better anyway, the club having worked so tirelessly defending sets that their offence was an afterthought, but even so Lingard was critical of certain decisions.

He stated: “It makes no difference how good your attack is. If you’re not defending well enough, then when you get the ball back, your attack is going to be poor anyway. I think at the start of the second half, we had the ball for three tackles in the first 14 or 15 minutes.

“Then when we did get the ball back again, we come up with an offload on tackle two with three or four bodies around and give them the ball back again.”

The two sides meet each other once again on Friday with that game at the DW Stadium instead with Craig Lingard hoping for a huge turnaround in form.