Castleford head coach Daryl Powell believes his squad is in a far better position now compared to 12 months ago.
The Tigers were forced into changing their pivot positions in 2015, with Daryl Clark leaving for Warrington while Ben Roberts and Luke Gale came arrived to play at halfback.
That resulted in the Tigers enduring a difficult start, losing their opening three Super League fixtures. However, Powell is of the belief that their won’t be a repeat of that this year.
“I think we’re miles in front,” he said.
“Last year we had two new half-backs, a hooker change with losing the Man of Steel, so we’re ahead. You can see by the way we’re practicing that there’s a fair bit of fluency and there’s a lot of understanding in there. We’ve done a lot of work in different areas and there’s a lot of confidence in this group that we can take the next step.
“We lost our first three games but we were a little bit unlucky. We weren’t in a great place and it’s not a gentle start this year with three away games in our first four. The one home game is Wakefield who are coached by one of the best coaches in the business.
“Nowadays teams will probably look at playing us and think we’re a tough nut to crack. I’m happy for people to think we’re a gimme but the reality is people know we can play a bit. We’ve got to make sure we’re durable under pressure and if we get that right we’ll take a hell of a lot of beating.”
