Castleford Tigers target Hull KR shock as coach Danny McGuire makes 'looking up' pledge
Improving Castleford Tigers are looking up the table after putting daylight between themselves and the bottom two.
Tigers, who play host to Betfred Super League leaders Hull KR this evening (Thursday), beat Hull FC 22-14 six days ago to pick up their fourth win of the season and first against a team above them on the table. They remain ninth, but are now only one win behind eighth-placed Catalans Dragons, with Warrington Wolves a further two points better off and coach Danny McGuire insisted the aim now is to reel in those teams.
“That’s the challenge, it is what we are after,” McGuire - whose side are six points clear of the bottom two - said. “We have identified this block of six games as being important for us. We play some really good sides so there’s some good challenges in there and we are looking up.
“We want to perform and win and challenge some of the teams who are up there towards the top of the table. We want to push and finish as high as possible and we will get a chance to see where we are [tonight] against a really good team.”
Tigers finished 10th in 2024, with seven wins and a draw from 27 games under then-coach Craig Lingard. Castleford were pipped in golden-point extra-time at Hull KR in round one, four months ago and McGuire stressed: “We want to be higher than last year. We could have potentially had another couple of wins and be pushing the play-offs.
“Things could be a little bit different, but we just want to find some consistency, we want to challenge and play well every week and have some competition for places within the squad, which I think we are creating. We are in a good place, but we are not getting ahead of ourselves. We know where we are and there’s a lot of hard work still in front of us.”
McGuire confirmed the 17 who beat Hull will be on duty this evening and he is looking for a repeat performance. “The lads who played on Friday all got through the game well and all contributed to a really good team performance so they will get an opportunity to back it up,” he said.
“We enjoyed what we did last week as a group and we want to do that again. We understand the challenge in front of us, Hull KR are a great team with a lot of great players, but I feel like we need to back up what we did last week, compete and play tough and if we do that, we’ll give ourselves a chance. We’ve got to turn up with the right attitude, like we did last week and the result will take care of itself.”
Castleford Tigers: from Cini, Wood, I Senior, Asi, Milnes, Horne, Lawler, Mellor, Westerman, Griffin, Robb, Hall, L Senior, Simm, Tate, Hill, Okoro, Singleton, Salabio, Amone, Atkin.
Hull KR: from Davies, Hiku, Burgess, Lewis, May, Sue, Litten, Hadley, Batchelor, Minchella, Luckley, Whitbread, Broadbent, Richardson, Tanginoa, Brown, Doro, Leyland, Ruan, Mourgue, Booth.
Referee: Liam Moore (Wigan). Kick-off: Thursday, 8pm.