Defeat a wake-up call admits Giants coach
CASTLEFORD COACH Daryl Powell felt the decision to disallow Jake Webster’s try was a costly one for his side – but praised opponents Warrington for their ability to play the mud bath conditions.
Trailing 10-0 at half-time, Castleford struck back with a try from Oliver Holmes 12 minutes into the second half and thought they had drawn level when Webster touched down in the 66th minute after Stefan Ratchford lost the ball near his own line only to have it disallowed.
“I thought we had some tough calls today,” 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 though both teams did a great job in the conditions. We started a little bit slow and that try before half-time 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 today,” he said. “We can’t fit another in, there is such limited time to get the fixtures in.”
The other positives for the Tigers were an encouraging debut for former Hull prop Liam Watts and another impressive display at full-back by 19-year-old Jake Trueman.
“I thought Liam Watts was really good,” Powell said.
“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 targeting him and coming up with nothing.”
Warrington coach Steve Price praised his side’s resilience in the atrocious conditions.
The Wolves scored tries at the end of each half through 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.
“I was always keen to play the game and it’s credit to Cas for going above and beyond to get the game on,” he said. HUDDERSFIELD INTERIM head coach Chris Thorman felt his side’s defeat at Catalans Dragons was a reality check.
The Giants had drawn with Leeds on Good Friday in their first game under Thorman but suffered a 27-6 defeat to the team propping up the Betfred Super League table on Easter Monday.
Huddersfield led 6-4 at halftime after taking the lead as Aaron Murphy crossed, but they conceded three tries in the first 14 minutes of the second period as the hosts took charge.
Thorman said: “I was disappointed with the way we managed the start of the second half.
“It’s an indicator of where we are as a group. The effort was good but we just conceded a couple of tries from kicks where a couple of young wingers were not quite doing their assignments.
“It’s hard to be critical of them but we’re playing Super League and it’s what’s expected of you. You have to catch your kicks and you have to return the ball.”
Thorman will not use the short turnaround from the Leeds game as an excuse for his side’s performance but admitted they missed half-back Danny Brough.
He said: “It’s a bit of a reality check as to where we’re at and you need a bit of luck along the way to get out of these spells and we’re not really getting it.
“It didn’t help with Broughy (Danny Brough) pulling out.”
Under-pressure Catalans head coach Steve McNamara felt his team’s second win of the season was a deserved one.
He said: “I thought the first half we looked OK but we looked a bit anxious at the same time. But second half I thought we played really well. We made Huddersfield work really hard to get out of their end and came up with some really nice tries.”