Castleford Tigers interim boss, Chris Chester, was once again left wondering where his side’s spirited performance against St Helens for the rest of the year has been, after being narrowly defeated at the Totally Wicked Stadium.
Three Tigers tries in the final five minutes of the game gave St Helens a late scare, as their comfortable 16-point lead after 73 minutes was cut to just two points. Tex Hoy missed two late conversions that could have pipped Paul Wellens’ side at the death, in what would have been a shocking collapse just one week before the playoffs.
After a season of gutless performances, heavy defeats aplenty and a will for it all to be over, Chester’s men once again produced an impressive showing for most of the game. Whilst pleasing to know they have the ability, it once again left the Director of Rugby questioning where the efforts and performances like this had been throughout the year.
He said: “Yeah that’s kind of been the story of the season, hasn’t it. I’m proud of the way the guys fought back there. With 10 minutes to go, we just came up with some mad plays, I spoke to Scotty [Murrell], ‘Well, why don’t we shift off the kick off and play this play?’ and then on the next set he said ‘What do you want to do?’ and I said ‘look like you’re going open and then kick down the short side, if it comes off, it comes off. If it doesn’t we’ll probably end up underneath the posts, but fortunately for us, we ended up underneath their posts.
“I couldn’t be prouder of the way that they fought back there”, he added. “I’m just disappointed that we kicked on that last play when we should have probably ran it, but it’s been a tough old year. One that we need to reflect on and we will do over these next couple of days and look forward. That’s all we can do, look forward, and I’m excited to see what our 2026 side looks like.”
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“Complete change” – Castleford Tigers Director of Rugby optimistic for 2026 and beyond
After the departure of Danny McGuire in mid-season, Chester took the reigns for the second half of the campaign, whilst Ryan Carr will be next to take on the role after signing a three-year deal from 2026 onwards.
On optimism for next year and Carr’s incoming, Chester said: “100% there is. Like I said there’ll be a lot of changes on and off the field. The playing squad will look totally different, I know Ryan [Carr]’s really excited about coming over in October and getting his teeth into a real tough pre-season and I’m looking forward to working with him as well.
“[There will be] complete change on and off the field. It’s probably needed. I just want to congratulate the lads tonight, thought they were very good for that last 20 minutes, they fought really hard. I want to thank our fans as well, they’ve put up with a lot this year, not had a lot to cheer about but they’ve come across in their numbers tonight, over the Pennines, and they’ve sung all the way through and I can’t thank them guys enough for their support. I look forward to seeing them all in 2026.
