Powell identifies key Warrington player and describes the outpouring of ’emotion’ for those leaving the club

Daryl Powell has identified one key man in the Warrington outfit that his team will need to look out for in this weekend’s semi-final.

“In 2014, Daryl Clark won Man of Steel and that season he was pretty special; he’s been consistent and he’s a real threat,” Powell said.

“He comes from a real tough area in Castleford where there are some unbelievable players that have been brought up.

“I knew he was going to be outstanding then and he’s continued to be brilliant since then.”

For some at the club, it will be an emotional game given that their careers may no longer be at Castleford beyond 2021.

“There’s some emotional people in there for different reasons – there are a couple of players who won’t be playing at Cas next year and we need to use that emotion as motivation moving forward.

“Everyone will be motivated most of the time; I’ve been here eight years, we’ve won a League Leaders’ Shield, but we haven’t won a Challenge Cup and a Grand Final so we want to do something special.

“It will mean more so to players and coaching staff who won’t be here next year.”

Powell is hoping to invoke the spirit of 2014, when the Tigers made it all the way to Wembley.

“I know with our best team out there we can beat anybody – anything is possible and we’ve been through some unbelievably great times in the last eight years.

“You don’t get to the semi finals very often – we haven’t been to one since 2014 and I tried to stress to the players that these opportunities don’t come around very often.

“We had a bit of a laugh about that semi-final, there were some scenes that weren’t great for rugby league, but I thought our performance was.

“It was massive for us that day, a great opportunity to play at Wembley and it was a really good game against Widnes.

“Daryl Clark ironically was on our team then and he played pretty well on that day.”