Castleford coach lays down challenge for Jason Qareqare with starlet recalled from loan

Castleford head coach Andy Last is hoping to see rising prospect Jason Qareqare take his performances to the next level after returning to the club from his Championship loan spell. 

The 19-year-old winger joined Bradford initially in April, and featured twice under Mark Dunning before the coach’s departure from Odsal Stadium.

The coaching change has seen Qareqare return to Last’s Castleford squad ahead of Magic Weekend, with the Tigers boss explaining the reasoning behind the move and what he expects moving forward from the Fiji international.

Castleford take on Leeds at St James’ Park in the final game of Saturday’s action in Newcastle, with a 6:00pm kick off.

Castleford boss on Jason Qareqare

“Jason Qareqare has got a chance [to play this weekend],” Last told Love Rugby League. 

“He’s trained well. We’ve had a good chat with him in regards of him taking the next step. 

“It’s been well documented that we sent him out on loan to Bradford to try and improve aspects of his performance from a yardage carrying point of view and doing a little bit more out of back field because the modern day winger is so important in getting your sets started and Jason needed to do that better than he had currently been.

“So that was the reasoning and thought process behind going and playing at Championship level against bigger bodies and on that pitch at Bradford where it’s a little bit smaller and he’d have to carry the ball 15 or 20 times a game.

“He’s done that OK. Obviously they’ve had a change of coach and they wanted to use their own players, which gave us an opportunity to bring Jason back.

“We all know what he’s capable of doing. 

“But what Jason needs to do now is start delivering it on a consistent basis and not just be a finisher, but he needs to roll his sleeves up and do a little bit more in back field. 

“There’s every chance he’ll be doing that on the weekend.”

Andy Last explains recent Championship move

Meanwhile, Last admits that Alex Sutcliffe has joined Halifax on dual-registration in the hopes of finding his best form.

The 24-year-old returned to action in the Challenge Cup against Hull, missing out against Huddersfield the week later in Super League. He is likely to feature against Toulouse in the Championship this weekend after being named in Halifax’s 21-man squad. 

“It’s just form,” Last explained on the move.

“He played against Hull FC, I didn’t think he played particularly well albeit it was his first game back. 

“Alex has spent a fair bit of time on the sideline struggling a little bit with his body and robustness. So I made a decision after he played against Hull FC that he needed to continue playing, so he had a game in the reserves. 

“He did OK, but he hadn’t done enough to get himself back in the 17 for us. So we made the decision, to continue that week in week out playing, to use the dual-registration at Halifax. 

“And Halifax and Simon Grix [Halifax head coach] were really keen to give him the opportunity to play him in that back-row, so Alex will benefit from the game time of playing. 

“This will be his third game in three weeks which is something that he’s not been able to do for a while now. 

“I’m hoping he takes confidence from that in that his body is ready and we’ll benefit from that as he’ll be getting some much needed game time and the opportunity to hit some form.”

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