Daryl Powell: Castleford need to be consistent

Castleford coach Daryl Powell said his side’s first half was unacceptable in their defeat at Wigan.

The Tigers fell short to a 24-22 defeat to the Warriors in the opening round of the Super 8s at the DW Stadium on Friday.

Castleford were 20-0 behind at half-time and Powell was disappointed with their performance in the first period.

He said: “The first half was unspeakable in lots of ways.

“It was frustrating. I didn’t even know where to start at half-time because everything was bad with our performance in the first half. Wigan came at us with their usual physicality, but the big surprise was that we didn’t deal with it.

“We coughed up the possession and the possession we did have was on our own try-line. We had a good opportunity but then Greg Eden decided to kick the ball and you can’t do those sorts of things when the game is going against you.

“We are disappointed. It was a great response in the second half but the worst thing about a response is the fact that there is a lot of poor stuff before. There has got to be a consistency and durability about our team and that is not evident at the moment.”

Powell was much happier with his side’s second half display.

He added: “We were just poor in the first half but we flipped it straight away after half-time.

“We came up with a much brighter half of football but it is disappointing that we need to be very poor to get a response like that. I thought we should have beat them in the second half but we just made too many errors.

“I thought Wigan deserved the win. They are three points in front of us now so we need to win every game to close that gap because it is still not guaranteed even if we do that.”

Castleford star Liam Watts played the entire game without coming off and Powell was full of praise for the front-rower.

Powell continued: “I just kept checking on him to see how he was.

“It was a massive effort from him to be out there for 80 minutes. He is a fit player anyway but to do 80 minutes in the middle is a huge effort.”

Castleford will look to bounce back when they welcome Warrington Wolves to the Mend-A-Hose Jungle next Friday.