Castleford have put their final nightmare to bed, insists Powell
Dublin trip helped Tigers get over Grand Final loss Coach believes they will again be the team to beat
There are few pains, it seems, that cannot be fixed by a couple of pints of Guinness. Ask Castleford Tigers, whose players and coaching staff spent the aftermath of last season’s Grand Final defeat, a miserable end to a fairy tale campaign, in the natural setting for some much-needed rest and recuperation – Dublin. The trip had been booked in advance of the final, but it was hoped that it would be a celebration of a historic season rather than an opportunity to drown sorrows.
“When you lose something like that, it is physically painful,” says Daryl Powell, the head coach. “It is for me anyway. But after I came back from Dublin, I felt all right. I don’t know if it was the Guinness. It was about getting away from it completely. Otherwise it would have been a pretty miserable weekend. It was talking about our relationships as coaches and chilling out. We did that and that’s the important thing, clearing your head of everything. Then you can start to move forward.”
Just days before October’s final, it was hard to believe there was any way in which the Tigers could end up losing. They had won their first League Leaders’ Shield by 10 points, triumphed in the most dramatic Super League semi-final imaginable, and had already beaten Leeds Rhinos, their opponents at Old Trafford, four times that season.
Then news reached the club that Zak Hardaker, their star full-back, had tested positive for cocaine. He was dropped from the squad and his teammates went on to be pulverised in the Manchester rain, losing 24-6 to a rampant Leeds. So what went wrong on the night? “Pretty much everything,” Powell says. “A lot of our players had their worst games of the season. Our ball control was terrible and we didn’t handle the conditions well at all.”
A new season now approaches, and with it a chance to right the wrongs of that disappointment. Confidence has been boosted by a smooth pre-season, during which Powell’s side gained revenge, of sorts, by beating Leeds in a friendly this month. The Grand Final has been discussed but Powell insists he does not want to dwell on it. Castleford will also have to contend with the added complication of being this year’s side to beat.
“There is a little bit of that,” Powell says. “But we have been a challenge for the opposition with the ball for three years. We have been hard to play against and I think we will be again. We are always trying to tweak things to evolve as a team and there will be a little bit more of that this year. If teams defend a certain way, you try and attack a little bit differently.”
That attack will still be short of Hardaker, who was last year named the league’s second-best player behind his Castleford and England team-mate Luke Gale. Hardaker, 26, is still waiting for the length of his suspension to be decided by UK Anti-Doping, although the two-year ban last year handed out to Widnes half-back Rangi Chase, who also tested positive for cocaine, suggests it is likely to be lengthy.
In the meantime, Hardaker has reportedly taken a job away from the sport. In his absence, Samoan half-back Ben Roberts will switch to full-back.
“What we were able to deliver last year was a potent mix of good attack and quality defence,” says Powell. “We have looked to improve a few things in our defence and from an attacking perspective we want to try and be as accurate as we can.”
Powell, who took over at Castleford in 2013, has been touted as a potential England head coach, with current coach Wayne Bennett yet to decide whether he wants to continue in the role. “I think every coach would say they wouldn’t mind doing that,” Powell says. “But it’s not a job you go and apply for, it’s one where they come after you.”
Whether England come calling remains to be seen, but what is guaranteed is that the rest of the league will be coming for his Castleford side this season. With the memory of that Grand Final hopefully washed away, it is time to see whether Castleford can restart the fairy tale.
‘We always try to tweak things to evolve as a team’