Former Leeds Rhinos star Danny Ward replaced former Hull FC coach Andy Last at Castleford Tigers as head coach.
His job was to fend off relegation and his first game was a baptism of fire as he faced Wakefield Trinity in a relegation Grand Final.
He guided Cas to a win over their rivals. Ward is only contracted till the end of the year so his future is unclear as he specified himself:
“It’s fine, it is what it is. I’m just coming in focusing on one week at a time and that next opposition, that next game, that next training session, that’s all that’s in my mind, nothing on the long term at all.
“Even if I was on a five year deal, that’s all I’d be doing, I’d be just focusing one week at a time. So whatever happens after that, I’m not really thinking about at the minute, it’s just week by week and game by game.
Would he want to be HC next year? – “I’m certainly enjoying it, it’s something I’ve wanted to do and really happy being here, so like I said, that will sort itself out in time.
“At the minute just just focusing on on winning games and keeping Cas in Super League.”
He also spoke about the defeat to St Helens:
“I don’t think so, no. My confidence, it’s weird when I came away from the game thinking we performed quite well and people probably look at the scoreline or see only half time, but I went in and told them that I thought defensively were pretty good.
“We worked on the areas that we spoke about the week before in the Wakefield game but we got caught against a good team in St. Helens who can punish you if have that one play off or you don’t quite defensive system for one play.
“Unfortunately, that’s what happened where I think overall the performance I came away from Friday night in quite a good mood for the coach who’s lost the game you know we could take it quite badly but I saw some positives. I saw how hard we worked that second half and that really did give me confidence going into to this next game.
“It seems a bit mad when you’re when you’re 30 down a half time to to be happy with performance because yes that’s not acceptable but at the same time I’m looking at areas we’re talking about building on and I saw progress.”
