WIND the clock back to 2017 and Castleford Tigers were on top of the world.
After storming to the top of the Super League table, accruing 50 points to finish first for the first time in their history, the Tigers were gearing up for their first ever Grand Final.
In the build up to the showpiece event at Old Trafford, however, Castleford were decimated by the news that Zak Hardaker had failed a drugs test, leading to a reshuffled side against local rivals Leeds Rhinos.
One of Castleford’s biggest stars that year was halfback Luke Gale, who won the Steve Prescott Man of Steel, and he has now revealed that he learnt so many lessons from that 24-6 defeat to the Rhinos.
“I learnt this the hard way in 2017. You can play a real robotic game and I don’t mean that in a bad way, but to complete and kick percentages to the corners and still win a Grand Final,” Gale said on the Super League podcast.
“In 2017, we lost Zak and we still tried playing, it p*ssed it down all day. The biggest lesson I got but it’s not like any other game and we had beaten Leeds three times that year.
“I remember to this day, if we had changed our setup because we lost Zak and not play as expansive and go low percentage it might have been a different game but they were brilliant.”
Gale explained further, stating that head coach Daryl Powell and the rest of the Castleford squad were confident that they could play the same way as they had done throughout the 2017 season.
“I think Powelly would have learnt a massive lesson from that. There wasn’t an air of arrogance, but we were that confident in our ability that we wanted to go and play that expansive and on that stage and I think we made 19 errors.
“You can’t win a game of amateur rugby league with 19 errors.”
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