Castleford Tigers head coach Craig Lingard has spoken openly about his side’s troubles in recruiting players for 2025, claiming that the market boasts “slim pickings” and that the unlikely prospect of silverware hinders them.
Many of the high-quality players that were off-contract have been poached by other clubs for 2025 with players such as John Asiata, Ryan Hall and Tom Johnstone all being confirmed to be on the move come November.
There is also a host of players that are reported to have signed deals elsewhere such as St Helens stalwart Tommy Makinson who confirmed he’ll end his 14-year stint with the club to depart, with Catalans Dragons reported to have tied him down.
For Castleford Tigers though, the signings have been limited to just two. Innes and Louis Senior are on loan at The Jungle in 2024 and the pair have recently signed new deals keeping them there until 2026.
Despite the confirmation of the Senior twins remaining at the club for 2025, the lack of new faces and signings, or even the suggestion of them, is something that has frustrated Castleford Tigers’ fans.
Speaking about the club’s recruitment situation to BBC Radio Leeds this week, Lingard said: “If players want to be winning something over the next 12 months, it’s not going to be a Castleford. We’re not going to be challenging the top end of the table at Castleford, realistically.”
“With the market being as it is, some of the players are commanding a lot of money,” Lingard explained, before accepting: “We’ve got to understand that certain players might be out of our reach because of where they are in their career so that sometimes limits the players that are available to us as well.”
It looks rather bleak in that respect but it’s also a realistic point of view with the Tigers being one of the clubs who aren’t 100% certain of their Super League status in 2025, on account of the fact that they’re not a Grade A club.
Director, Martin Jepson, has rubbished talk that the club won’t be in the top tier though, arguing: “We believe we’ll be a Super League club next year, we need you to believe in it as well.”
It could still be that the uncertainty does limit the Tigers in the market. But, in the aftermath of Castleford’s abject performance against Leeds yesterday, something has to change.