Speaking post-game on Sky Sports, Castleford Tigers’ boss Craig Lingard slammed his side’s “sloppiness” as he explained his disappointment at the efforts of some players.
Castleford Tigers have now slipped to three straight defeats after being pulled apart by Hull KR 36-6 in a game that could have got more embarrassing if Mikey Lewis had his kicking boots on.
After putting together a string of three consecutive wins, it seemed that it had finally clicked for Castleford Tigers but they’ve followed that up with three defeats, albeit against two top-six sides and playoff hopefuls Leigh.
Just before their winning streak started, Cas came close to beating both Wigan and Hull KR, losing to the Robins by just one point. Last night’s performance was a far cry from that game at The Jungle just over seven weeks ago.
“I thought there was sloppiness on both sides at the ball, to be honest with you. I thought the execution with ball in hand was off and certainly, our contact in D wasn’t good enough,” Lingard explained.
“We got rolled far too easy. Hull KR found their front pretty much every ruck and managed to generate some quick ruck speed. Then on the back of that, they were getting offloads.
“It’s difficult to get back against a quality team like KR but I’m just really disappointed with some of our efforts both sides of the ball.”
Playoffs were nigh on impossible for Castleford Tigers, even if they had won their last three games, and Craig Lingard has reaffirmed that the club’s goal is to finish in ninth, effectively top of the bottom four.
They’re currently one point shy of ninth-placed Huddersfield Giants but the two sides meet next week at Magic Weekend and on the final day of the season as well.
Trying to explain the heavy loss to Hull KR, who were themselves sloppy with the ball at times, Lingard claimed that the defeat was simply a sign of where the club are in terms of their player quality and not to do with injuries.
“We’ve got a fair share of injuries but we’re not using that as an excuse. It’s just where we are as a group. We’ve got players that haven’t played at the top-end Super League teams and consistently played in Super League. So it’s a massive learning curve for these players.
“When you’ve got top-quality players in your team, that’s why you can be consistent. We’re just learning to try and be consistent as a team. It is disappointing as a coach, you want to win as many games as you can and perform as well as you possibly can but we’ve got to remember these players are learning all the time and we’ve got to make sure that we take this into next week now against Huddersfield at Magic and hopefully learn some of these lessons that have been dealt to us today by a real good KR side.”
A win there would take them into ninth, something Castleford Tigers set out as their ‘ultimate goal’, Lingard revealed: “We’ve got an opportunity to try and get above Huddersfield in that bottom four and try to be the top of the bottom four and that’s our ultimate goal this year. If we can do that, then as negative as it sounds, it’s been a successful season for us.”