CRAIG LINGARD has admitted that new signing Sylvester Namo shouldn’t have played for Castleford Tigers in their 50-8 thrashing by Huddersfield Giants on Friday night.
The Giants led 24-4 at half-time before blowing the Tigers away with five tries in the last 17 minutes with Castleford still winless at the bottom of the Super League table.
Namo, an off-season recruit, played for the first time since suffering an ACL injury last year, but Lingard revealed that he should have played the PNG international in Castleford’s reserves game against Huddersfield instead.
“He was very rusty, in hindsight we probably shouldn’t have played in,” Lingard said.
“He was pencilled in for the reserves and in hindsight we should have put him in there. You could see he was miles off the pace in terms of Super League game pace.
“I will own that and say I got that wrong. He should have played in the reserves, but he was chomping at the bit and looked good in training.”
So does Lingard have the answers to the thrashing by Huddersfield?
“We’ve got to get the answers, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could. It’s tough and there are no easy answers.
“It’s all down to effort and hard work. Sometimes you need to get punched on the nose like that to realise where you are.
“That’s not a performance I want to be associated with, the club doesn’t want to be associated with that and it doesn’t represent us as a club.
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