Andy Last confirms Castleford have made offers to off-contract duo

Castleford coach Andy Last has confirmed the club have made offers to Hull KR’s Sam Wood and Wakefield’s Jordan Crowther, who are both out of contract at the season’s end.

The Tigers are expected to be busy in the market as they plan a re-build of their aging squad under new coach Last, with several players out of contract.

Although they have been rumoured to have missed out on a few early targets, Last has confirmed interest in Wood and Crowther.

He said: “They are two players that we’ve made offers to and that we like. The actual discussions have gone well, hopefully we’ll be getting some confirmation in the coming weeks and months.

“It’s a busy and challenging time in regards to recruitment. Having those conversations with players you’ve identified can help improve your team and those two guys are good players and think that they could help us and obviously Castleford Tigers.

“They’ve got their best years in front of them and they still probably haven’t fulfilled their potential but are very ambitious and have got a desire to get better and those are the things that appeal to us as a club and those are the reasons why we’ve been looking at them.”

The departure of Wood from Hull KR may come as a surprise, as he established himself as a relative regular last season, making 22 appearances.

He has scored three tries in seven appearances at the start of this campaign under Willie Peters.

The 25-year-old started his career at Huddersfield and had spells on loan at Oldham, Workington, Halifax, Batley and Dewsbury before moving to Craven Park ahead of the 2021 season.

Crowther is just three appearances shy of a hundred for his hometown club, who he made his debut for in 2014 at the age of 17.

His journey has also seen loan spells at York, Dewsbury and Oxford.

Wakefield coach Mark Applegarth was asked about the Crowther speculation in his pre-match press conference.

He said: “I’ve not seen them. I’ve got an excellent relationship with Jordan, I’m just focusing on tomorrow evening, I’ve not really spoken with Jordy on that.

“I’ve not seen it, I’m sure if there is anything to announce in due course then it’ll get announced but we haven’t really spoken about that, we’ve just been focusing on ourselves and getting our own standards where we want them because it’s fair to say it’s not been there.”