CHRIS CHESTER believes Castleford Tigers gave encouragement to incoming coach Ryan Carr despite a 38-4 defeat at fellow strugglers Catalans Dragons.

Interim coach Chester said: “For 40 minutes I thought we were pretty good but the try just before half-time sucked quite a bit of energy out of us.

“There were a couple of massive turning points in the game but we’ve just got to be a bit more resilient.

“Listen, I thought we were the better side in that first half. We gave a debut to young Alfie Lindsey and scoring that try was a big moment for him.

“He didn’t look out of place in the team that we put together.

“We lost Jenson Windley (to a failed head-injury assessment) which had a bit of an effect but I thought our middles were great and physical for the most part of the game.

“There’s a lot to work on in terms of our edge defence but we wanted a response after last week and I thought we got that.

“We had our chances but we just didn’t execute them and that’s on our halves, our spine.

“But collectively, there is plenty there for Ryan (Carr) to work with. I spoke to him tonight on the phone and he’d been watching the game.

“What you want is a collective effort and I thought we got that tonight.”