Castleford Tigers v Leigh Centurions - Unbeaten Cas wary of threat

In direct contrast to their opponents, Castleford have made a 100 per cent winning start ahead of their first appearance at Wheldon Road this term.

But Olpherts, 29, believes newly-promoted Leigh have been competitive in each of their three outings so far – and his own side still need to improve themselves.

“We are expecting them to come out firing,” he said.

“They have been playing well. People have been writing Leigh off, but you can’t write any team off in Super League.

“They have a point to prove, like everyone has, so we’ll be doing our best to try and get one over them.”

Castleford need only look to last week to realise how competitive Super League is this term; they were 22-6 down at half-time against last year’s bottom-placed side Hull KR and then needed a 99th-minute drop-goal from Gareth O’Brien to eventually win in extra-time.

“Last Friday wasn’t a good performance from us at all,” conceded the former Salford Red Devils wideman.

“It wasn’t like us, how we played – we scraped through.

“We can’t start like we did then; we were lucky to come back and we will be looking to start a lot better.

“I think how we played against Warrington was good, but we can play better.

“We were a bit scratchy against Leeds and we still pulled a win out.

“But there’s still more from us to come and we can be better in every area. We can kick on.”

If Castleford are serious about ending their long wait for a maiden league championship, they must do that, and win these sorts of fixtures.

Niall Evalds is expected to return at full-back with O’Brien moving to scrum-half to replace Danny Richardson.

Brad Helpi, Greg Eden and Lewis Bienek are also looking to force their way into Daryl Powell’s 17 with youngster Sam Hall in the reckoning, too.

Leigh could give debuts to James Bell and Josh Simm who have joined on loan from champions St Helens.

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