It’s easy to get excited about Castleford Tigers right now – and Nathan Massey knows it.
Four win from four, the undoubted success story of the new Super League season in the opening month, Classy Cas appear to be back. For a local lad like Massey, that is music to his ears.
But such impressive rugby comes with a tag – the favourites tag. Everyone outside of the Mend-A-Hose Jungle appears to be talking about the Tigers ahead of today’s trip to Salford: but Massey is not interested in what people are saying.
“People outside of us are starting to see us as a threat as well but it’s about what we do behind closed doors,” he said.
“It’s a really good place to be at the minute. I think the only pressure we’ve got is from ourselves and I don’t think we’re doing that at the minute.
“We’re not looking too far ahead; everyone is coming to work with a smile on their faces and it’s bringing the best out of us. It’s nice to come into training knowing everyone is performing at the top of the game and the depth means that we’re all being pushed because you can’t afford to have a bad game. If you do, you’ll be out, and it’ll be tough to get back in.”
Massey is one of several players who were around before the Daryl Powell era began at Castleford – and he admits he has been able to sense a progression to where the Tigers currently find themselves for quite some time.
He said: “We’ve been building towards this for quite a while. Playing the way we do for the last three years, we’ve had some frailties in our defence and that was something we worked hard on in pre-season and it’s coming to fruition now I think.
“It’s no shock to us; we’re genuinely believing we can really compete at the top end of Super League.”
