Craig Lingard has explained how uncharacteristic sin bins cost his team in their 30-22 defeat against Salford Red Devils with Castleford Tigers unable to stretch their winning streak to four.
Castleford have had an upturn in form of late with their past five games seeing a marked improvement from their first half of the season with the last three of those games being victories.
Prior to them they were edged out by two points against champions Wigan and lost in golden point to second-place side Hull KR.
Victories over St Helens, Huddersfield Giants and Catalans Dragons had followed but Salford Red Devils proved one step too far, however, two sin bins did not help the cause and that’s something that Castleford Tigers boss Lingard has been left to rue.
Speaking post-match on BBC West Yorkshire Sport, the Tigers boss explained that the sin bins were out of character of his side who he argued had been one of Super League’s more disciplined sides.
“I don’t think we’ve had many sin bins this season because of it so I think we’ve done pretty well,” the Castleford Tigers boss told the BBC.
“Considering we’re in round 19 and we’ve maybe had one or two sin bins and the Liam Watts red card in that first game, s0 I think we’re done alright, more than most teams have done with it anyway.
“It’s not really been an issue for us this season, it’s just that we’ve had two today and that’s been highlighted with the points that we’ve conceded during that period of time.”
Lingard was correct in that Castleford Tigers actually have the fewest number of sin bins all season with just three across their 19 games, two of which were picked up yesterday. As he referenced, they were incredibly costly with three of Salford’s four tries coming whilst Cas were at a man disadvantage.
Asked just how his side have become so good at avoiding the sin bin during a season that has seen over 100 cards at almost one card per game, Lingard revealed that a pre-season focus helped them.
“We worked on it all the way through pre-season and we did it every single session about the reduction of tackle height.”
Specifically on yesterday’s sin bins, he had no complaints with one and missed another but was pragmatic in his response with Castleford Tigers already looking ahead to their game against Leigh Leopards on Thursday night.
“I don’t think he was helped by the other tacklers who made the leg tackle which automatically reduced the ball carrier’s height so when Sylvester is coming into contact, he’s not at head level and as soon as you hit head, that’s how it is nowadays, whether you like it or not.
“The late tackle one, I didn’t really see it on the big screen replays, so I can’t really comment on that one but it is what it is, we can’t change it.