Liam and Jake are plus points for Cas: Powell

WHILE Castleford Tigers come to Huddersfield on Sunday having been beaten 18-6 at home in terrible conditions by Warrington, coach Daryl Powell believes there were some positives for his side.

There was an encouraging debut for former Hull prop Liam Watts and another impressive display at fullback by 19-year-old Jake Trueman.

“I thought Liam Watts was really good,” said Powell.

“You can see he’s going to be awesome for us.

“I can’t speak highly enough of Jake, he had a superb performance and, when the pitches dry up, we will see a lot more from him – but everybody is targeting him and coming up with nothing.”

Warrington scored tries at the end of each half through Huddersfieldborn Toby King and Daryl Clark but, for most of the contest, were indebted to the marksmanship of Stefan Ratchford, whose three penalty goals were crucial.

Oliver Holmes scored Castleford’s only try, with Luke Gale adding the two, after they were 10-0 down at the break in a mudbath at the Mend-aHose Jungle.

Cas thought they had drawn level when Jake Webster touched down in the 66th minute after Ratchford lost the ball near his own line, only to have it disallowed.

Powell had another view of the disallowed try but praised Warrington for their ability to play the horrible conditions.

“I thought we had some tough calls,” Powell said.

“I’m not sure he had it fully in his hands, I need to see it back.

“But I’m not blaming anybody but ourselves and a good performance by Warrington.

“I thought both teams did a great job in the conditions. We started a little bit slow and that try before halftime was big for them.

“We were better in the second half but when we had an opportunity to get a grip of the game we made a couple of errors.

“There are some key lessons for us, hopefully we’ll learn them.

“Warrington are a tough side this year, they’ve got a real pragmatic approach.”

After having two matches postponed already this year, Powell was relieved to get the game out of the way.

“We had to play,” he said. “We can’t fit another in, there is such limited time to get the fixtures in.”