Castleford Tigers' Blake Taaffe talks passionate fans, pride in the shirt & hitting ground running v Doncaster
Castleford Tigers’ new-look side are determined to put pride back in the shirt, Aussie signing Blake Taaffe says.
The former South Sydney Rabbitohs and Canterbury Bulldogs outside-back is one of 10 potential debutants in Tigers’ initial squad for the Betfred Challenge Cup third round tie at Doncaster tomorrow (Saturday). And having been in this country since November, he already knows how much his new club means to its local community.
He said: “We’ve done a bit of research, we’ve had a lot of lessons on how much this town thrives when this team is going well. It has been a motivator for us all and a big eye-opener.
“I can’t say too much about what has gone on over the past few years because I haven’t been here, but we are putting our best foot forward for the fans, for the club and ourselves - having pride in our jersey this year.
“We want to give these fans something to look forward to every week and if we can do that, this town will thrive. That’s our goal this year.”
Taaffe, 26, will get a first chance to run out in front of Tigers’ home supporters when Wigan Warriors are the visitors next weekend in Super League round one. He stressed Cas are taking things “one week at a time, one team at a time”, but admitted: “I am keen to play at home in front of our fans and there’s no better way to do it than against the benchmark of this comp for the last four or five years.
“We know they are going to be tough, but what we’ve done over the pre-season has put us in the best stead for this year. We’ve just got to go out there and play the way we’ve been training and put our best foot forward.”
Before that, Tigers have to get past Doncaster and avoid a repeat of 2025 when they were dumped out of the Cup by second-tier Bradford Bulls, “I can’t wait,” Taaffe – a former NRL Grand Finalist – said of his debut. “It has been a long time coming. I am really looking forward to the year ahead and it starts this week.
“I know last year the boys went down in the first game and there has been a really big emphasis that we want to go well in this. We can’t take anything lightly, but we are going out there to play our brand of footy and we’re really looking forward to it.”
With so many new faces in the squad, Taaffe stressed Tigers’ first priority is getting their own game right. “We have put in so much work over this pre-season,” he added. “We’ve built combinations and trained our backsides off.
“We’ve been in the hurt locker and we finally get to play some footy this weekend. We had a trial match two weeks ago against St Helens which didn’t go to plan, but there were some good things in that game and some bad things and we’ve had two weeks to look at the video and get better.”