Castleford Tigers coach Daryl Powell said Thursday night’s win at Wigan was his side’s best of 2017 as they extended their lead at the Super League summit.
The Tigers won 27-10 to record a seventh win in eight games at the start of the season, as they proved too good for the Warriors with a magnificent defensive effort.
And Powell was quick to praise his side. “I thought it was an awesome performance,” he said.
“I think this was our best win of the season because of the nature of it. We’ve had victories where we’ve superb with the ball but tonight, just the sheer guts and determination gives us more belief that we can be there at the end.
“If we keep defending like that, teams will find it hard to break us down. It was one of the best defensive efforts since I came to the club. The boys have really bought into the way we’re defending and that’s really pleasing from a coaching perspective.”
Powell also insisted his side have learned some valuable lessons from their one big setback this season: defeat to Salford last month.
“We put ourselves under pressure right at the start with three handling errors which hurt us. We had to dig our way out of that and I thought we did it admirably,” he said.
“We had to find a way to score points, we were not at our best, but the pleasing thing is that you can see we’ve learned from the Salford defeat.
“The tough edge we’ve got as a defensive team shows we’re growing all the time.”
The one blow for the Tigers on the night was the loss of captain Michael Shenton in the warm-up.
Powell said: “It was a bit of a blow losing Shenny in the warm-up – his back locked up and he’s still in a fair bit of pain – but Wigan have a lot of players missing so we’re not going to complain about that.”
