Daryl Powell could not contain his disappointment as Castleford fell to their first defeat of the season against Salford.
A 13-12 reverse condemned the Tigers to their first defeat of the season and knocked them off top spot following Wigan’s draw with Huddersfield.
After seeing his side go down to Gareth O’Brien’s late drop goal, Powell admitted his side didn’t step up to the test put in front of them.
“We were poor,” he said.
“I don’t think we ever really got our game together. It was our first real tight assignment and we came up short.
“I thought Salford were superb, they defended well and came up with a smart game plan. We didn’t deserve to win. We tried to play the conditions way too much. It was a bit of an arm wrestle and they just edged it.
“There’s quite a few lessons for us to learn. We need to move on and some players have some wising up to do. We were pretty unrecognisable today, although it doesn’t help when you are having to move people around.”
As an added blow, Powell confirmed that Greg Minikin picked up a shoulder injury during the contest, although he was hopeful it wouldn’t rule him out of action for a long period of time.
“We think his shoulder came out and went back in pretty quickly – hopefully it’s not too bad.”