Castleford Tigers coach Daryl Powell has conceded that it is getting to the time of the season which, with his side’s position in the league table, means Sunday’s game against Hull FC looks increasingly like a must-win contest.
Powell’s side have been plagued with both injuries and inconsistency throughout the course of 2016, and last week’s defeat to Widnes left them way off the pace in regards of chasing down the top four ahead of the Super 8s.
And the Tigers coach admitted they will have to improve significantly to challenge table-toppers Hull, saying that his side are now going to have to eye up a similar run to the one FC are on if they are to claw their way back into title contention.
“You’re getting to that point now,” he said when asked if it was a must-win game.
“When you look at what Hull have done, not long back they locked the coach out of the changing room and it flipped their season. We need a big run because we’ve lost too many games in relation to being in the top four.
“We have to be much-improved on the strength of that performance last week.
“It didn’t make for good viewing watching it back but we’d been on a reasonable run of performances in terms of attitude and commitment and we dropped well off last week. The challenge is a big one this week, we know how good Hull have been and we’re looking forward to it.”
However, Powell could be given a boost with the news that fullback Luke Dorn could return from injury – although the Tigers boss hinted that there won’t be too many changes to his 17.
He said:Luke could potentially be available; he’s trained this week so I’m hopeful he’s alright. There won’t be too many others, I’ll have a couple of decisions to make but when you lose a game like that you give a team as much of a chance to respond as you can.
