Lee Radford revealed the extent of Greg Eden’s fitness struggles after seeing the winger reach the landmark of 100 tries for Castleford Tigers in their dominant victory over Wakefield Trinity last Thursday.
He has a record of more than a try a game, having reached 100 in 94 appearances across two spells, at the start of his career and then re-joining in 2017 – the season he was Super League’s top scorer and grabbed an astonishing 41 of those tries.
Castleford coach Radford congratulated the 31-year-old on reaching a “phenomenal record”, especially considering the issues that saw him miss much of pre-season and the start of this campaign, and which still present a challenge, with Eden left out of the squad to face Leeds Rhinos on Monday.
“He’s had a different pre-season to everyone else, he’s had to physically,” said Radford.
“And he has a different week to everyone else in terms of the content we do with him.
“Touch wood he’s on the field every week, which he hasn’t consistently been over the last couple of seasons.
“The more he’s on the field for us, the better we are.
“He’s coming back from a hamstring operation. He’s had some real issues in his calves too and that was a bit of a head-scratcher for us in pre-season, we genuinely couldn’t find anything there.
“Matty Crowther (Castleford physio) has done a great job with him and managed to nip that in the backside.”
Eden has scored at least one try in every game he’s played this season – and a total of eleven from seven appearances – but Radford has been just as impressed by his work in other areas.
“He only needs half a chance and he usually puts it away, but is also a danger laterally,” he said.
“For a big bloke who’s fatigued, when somebody skips across you like that with that leg speed and can come off either foot, it’s dangerous. He’s very good out of backfield for us as well.”
Castleford host Leeds aiming for a third consecutive league win and a repeat of their comfortable Challenge Cup win at Headingley last month.
Radford predicted a “tasty” encounter and said of the short turnaround: “It’s a war of attrition.
“You feel okay when the kick-off starts, but ten minutes in you realise there’s nothing in your legs, so mentally you’ve got to find something and that’s the challenge as a player that you love and embrace.”
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