Castleford Tigers recruitment update as investor reveals market challenges

Castleford Tigers director Martin Jepson insists the club have every intention of ‘pushing on’ in the transfer market for 2025: and insists while talks with potential signings are ongoing, they are navigating a difficult market.

The Tigers finished their home season on a high in terms of off-field matters last weekend, with a bumper crowd watching them face Leigh Leopards. They are likely to finish the Super League season in tenth, overcoming a difficult start to pull away from Hull FC and London Broncos at the bottom of the table.

But attention is now turning to 2025. So far, the Tigers have only announced the signing of Parramatta’s Zac Cini – but Jepson, speaking to Love Rugby League, promised there are further recruits on the way.

“We’re absolutely looking and talking to people at the moment,” he said. “It’s not an easy market right now, for whatever reason, but we are out there looking and we’re talking on a regular basis as to who might be available and who we could add to the squad. We know the areas we want to improve on.

“We realised early on this season we were under-strength and we needed to bolster the squad, and the key now is to push on and use that as a base for next year. We were always giving younger players a chance with a view to them being much stronger next year, but the goal is now to add to that.”

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Jepson insisted the Tigers have acted on a difficult start to 2024 with their transfer business, including tying down the Senior twins to long-term deals and signing, before subsequently handing a new contract to, fullback Tex Hoy.

He said: “I was personally, irrespective of grading systems, very keen we didn’t finish bottom because you don’t want that hanging over you when you would have ordinarily got relegated.

“I was quite keen to make sure we improved on the start of the season. The team is a very different team to the one at the start of the season.

“Look at the squad numbers now: there’s very few in the 1-13 numbers. We’ve made some incremental improvements bringing in Tex Hoy, the Senior brothers.. the side’s different from how it started out.

“We will hopefully improve upon that further next year.”

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