Craig Lingard has told the Castleford Tigers supporters that he shares their frustration over the lack of signings but is confident their patience will be rewarded.
Zac Cini is the only confirmed addition for 2025, although Lingard has confirmed the Tigers are in talks with his Parramatta Eels team-mate Daejarn Asi, a half-back with 14 NRL appearances to his name this season.
Lingard had been hoping for more movement by now – something he hinted at last week when he stated he was waiting for the green light from above to execute the plan that is in place – but he has stressed that the club must get their recruitment right.
“It’s a microwave generation where you want everything now. Sometimes things don’t happen at the pace you want them to happen.
“But I’ve also said previously that we don’t want to go out there and just bring in anybody because they’re there and available.
“We’ve identified a number of targets we believe are right for the club and hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can get some of them over the line.
“The frustration sometimes is because you know how difficult the market is to bring people in and sometimes it’s a real small window to get these deals done.
“Maybe it’s something I need to handle a little bit better at times that you don’t always get what you want and there’s no point me stamping my feet like a little kid because it doesn’t always work.”
Castleford are 12 months into a three-year plan as the club target incremental improvement under Lingard.
The next stage is to attract players of a higher calibre, an objective Lingard is optimistic about ultimately achieving.
“The people we’re talking to, you get an idea very, very quickly whether it’s going be a realistic option or not and if it’s not a realistic option, you move on from them very quickly,” he said.
“I don’t want to have to persuade people to come to Castleford. People have got to want to come to Castleford for the right reasons.
“I’ve said before that if it’s someone coming over from the NRL to play two years at Castleford and go back to the NRL for a starting position, I’m not bothered about that because if they do, it means they’ve been successful for us and we’ll probably be higher up the table with the opportunity to attract higher-quality players.
“If we can use them to our advantage and they can use us to their advantage, as long as the reason for them coming is to benefit us, then brilliant.”
Castleford are set for another lowly finish in Super League but have improved on last year when they were in relegation danger until the closing weeks.
The threat to the Tigers this year is the uncertainty of the new grading system which goes live next month.
Lingard, however, is convinced Castleford will still be in Super League in 2025 with a squad capable of challenging higher up the table.
“With the targets we’ve identified and are hoping to get across the line, if we can get them into the country and our group for the start of pre-season, I’ve got no doubt we’ll be stronger than this year,” he said.
“There are some real positive signs with the targets we’re looking at bringing in and have spoken to. Daejarn Asi is the sort of player we are looking at, those people who have played the NRL games that he is.
“I know there’s been speculation about why we haven’t signed them and whether it’s because we don’t know what division we’re going to be in – but us not signing players as quickly as maybe some people want has got absolutely nothing to do with that. We’re as close to 100 per cent as we can be that we’re going to be in Super League next year.”
Castleford’s immediate priority is to end another challenging season on a high, a cause that has not been helped by fresh injuries to Joe Westerman, Tex Hoy, Corey Hall and Cain Robb.
Teenage forward Akim Matvejev has been drafted in for his debut against St Helens, who are set to welcome back several big hitters on Friday.
“It’s going to be another difficult challenge tomorrow going to Saints with only 20 fit players and four 18 year olds,” said Lingard.
“How do the senior players respond to that? We’re looking at being competitive and challenging in these last two games. If we can get a victory or two then brilliant.
“Hopefully that would be a positive end to what I think has largely been a positive season with some bumps in the road. The development and progression we’ve shown this year from where we started last November, it’s unrecognisable.”
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