CASTLEFORD TIGERS went down 34-18 to the Leigh Leopards at The Jungle.
But, it was the result at Belle Vue which rocked the Castleford crowd more, with Wakefield Trinity overcoming Wigan Warriors in a 27-26 Golden Point win.
That left the Tigers just two points above Trinity with head coach Andy Last disappointed about the result.
“I’m disappointed with our ball control tonight, Leigh are a very dangerous attacking team and we gifted them far too much good position through poor errors in our own end,” last said.
“We previewed their ferocity with line speed and we needed to play with better shape to negate that but when we made those errors and we fell into the trap of going one out. It played right into their hands and they dominated field position and that hurt us.
“They are very slick but defensively I thought we did a good job in the first 20 minutes but we didn’t learn our lessons and we gifted them the ball. Then the amount of defending we did in the first 20 minutes caused us some problems from a fatigue point of view.
“There are big lessons for us to learn, they are a very good team and we need to do some stuff a lot better.”
Last was also asked about a number of suspiciously-looking forward passes leading to Leigh’s opening two scores as well as a penalty at the scrum for Cain Robb not packing down at the back of the scrum, despite it being the Tigers’ feed.
“I felt the first one was a dubious one and could have been called forward and the first score in any game is significant. There were a couple of line balls and they could argue we got away with some.
“You’ve got to make your own luck and I don’t think we did enough in terms of getting into the grind and going set for set and earning the right to get field position.
“I think it was 22-16 and Gareth O’Brien drops the ball and there was some hesitation about whether there was a knock on which was a strange call.
“And then the referee plucks Cain Robb for not putting his head in the back of a scrum. That’s one of those calls that you probably won’t see again this year and it had a big momentum shift in the outcome of the game.”
The Castleford boss also had his say on Jordan Johnstone’s debut as well as Jordan Turner’s injury.
“I think Jordan (Johnstone) played 55 minutes, I think he did ok. His service was good and his defence was ok. Cain came off the bench and gave us some good energy. We didn’t have enough ball but he defended well tonight and punched in hard.
“Jordan Turner looked like he’s dislocated his thumb, we missed him with his big carries out of back field and he would have helped us bend the line against Leigh. We missed that presence with Jordan being off.”
