Castleford head coach Lee Radford praises ‘special’ win over Catalans

Castleford head coach Lee Radford has hailed his side’s 17-16 win over Catalans as ‘special’ with Danny Richardson snatching the victory in golden point extra time. 

The Tigers hit the front on 27 minutes when Cheyse Blair crossed thanks to a grubber kick. However, the visitors soon equalised through England international Michael McIlorum.

Ryan Hampshire regained his side’s advantage two minutes after the restart, before Sam Tomkins levelled the score once more. Arthur Romano gave the Dragons their first lead of the game, until Derrell Olpherts’ try forced the game into golden point.

Richardson kicked the winning drop-goal late into extra-time to give his side back-to-back victories. The result follows their 20-14 victory over Toulouse in hot conditions in France two weeks prior.

Lee Radford praises attitude and performance after win

Radford told a press conference afterwards: “I’m just pleased to come out of the other end of it. I thought some of the stuff that got thrown at us during the game had some real knock-on effects.

“It could have had some real detrimental effects but I thought we stuck at it fantastically well.

“I thought the last game against Toulouse was a really big win for us because of the circumstances, the temperature was incredible and the effort was through the roof.

“To back that up today, I’ve been screaming out for consistency throughout the season and to back that performance up with that one today was special.”

Before the opening try on Sunday, the hosts had to weather a storm to keep the scores level and Radford thought his side reacted well to being on the back foot in the early stages.

“I thought we defended really well in that period as well, and then we got the hot period where we had a bit more of the football and looked like a side, so that’s the rewards for aiming up and sticking at it.

“The difficulty today was hard, we had two interchanges that we could not use and with everybody playing out of position I suppose, I think their effort and commitment was fantastic.

“I genuinely did not know which way it was going to go, I thought there was some real dumb stuff but also some real special effort stuff from both sides as well.”

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