Leading rugby league agent believes Castleford Tigers should have made big player calls sooner

LEADING rugby league agent, Craig Harrison of Show Me The Money UK, believes that Castleford Tigers should have made big calls on players sooner.

The Tigers have now lost both of their pre-season fixtures against Super League new boys Wakefield Trinity and 2024 strugglers Hull FC, and Danny McGuire’s side face a tremendous task away at the Bradford Bulls in the Challenge Cup Third Round this weekend.

Bradford, buoyed by big-money recruits such as Franklin Pele, Waqa Blake and Jayden Okunbor, will be fancying their chances against the Tigers.

And Harrison believes the West Yorkshire club has a major challenge on their hands.

“You can’t jump the gun, it’s too early to judge people on that,” Harrison said on The Full Eighty Minutes podcast.

“Danny (McGuire), Brett (Delaney) and Scott (Murrell) have got a big job on their hand. If Danny is going to be a coach – which we all think he will be – he should be thriving.

“You have got to love it that much because this is seven days a week you are living this. You’ve got to be going to games and thinking about picking players up.

“The challenge is on. I think the chairman has come into it and people are saying that Cas fans have not got any expectations – but I think they do. I don’t think they are going into this season and thinking ‘we are finishing bottom’.

“The chairman has got a hell of a job and he has put over £1 million already. He is say there ‘I’ve taken this club on and put over £1 million in and we might finish at the bottom’.”

Harrison believes that McGuire will let the players try and prove themselves for a month before heading into the market for new blood.

“I think they will go four weeks and bring players in. Danny is respectful enough as a coach and he’s said to the lads ‘you’ve got a blank canvas and will play pre-season’ and then he will go to Danny Wilson and he will go to the owner and ask for more money because ‘he’s got to go and he’s got to go’.

“I’ve always said this, you shouldn’t feel bad as a coach doing that. He is now a custodian of Castleford.

“The big boys make those calls but I would have made those calls quicker. It would not have gone this far.”