Castleford Tigers boss Craig Lingard has moved to allay fears of a lengthy lay-off for winger Jason Qareqare. The Fiji international sat out of Thursday’s clash with Leigh Leopards on Thursday night as the Tigers were beaten 20-10 on home soil.
Qareqare has been a key man for Lingard over the last couple of months and bagged a brace against Salford Red Devils last time out. As such, his absence will have been a cause for concern for those Tigers fans in attendance at Wheldon Road.
However, Lingard insists Qareqare’s absence was simply due to a minor hamstring issue, with the head coach being optimistic that he will be fit enough to feature sooner rather than later.
“I’m not sure if we’re going to send him for a scan. He just had a bit of a twinge from his hamstring,” Lingard said after seeing his side slump to a second straight Super League defeat.
“We trained Tuesday and he got through that alright, but then he came in for our captain’s run on Wednesday morning and he felt a little bit tight. His testing was off as well, he only got to about 75/80% of high speed running, so we just took that decision out of his hands.
“If it had been a massively important game in terms of a cup semi-final or something like that, we might have left it until today and given him a fitness test, but we took it out of his hands.
It’s been a frustrating season for Castleford Tigers, who sit 10th in the Super League table, nine points behind the play-off pace. As such with just seven games remaining, it’s fair to say their hopes of launching a late push for the top six look slim to say the very least.
However, they’ll still be keen to end the season well and they’ll be looking to bounce back to winning ways next week against Hull KR.
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