Experience is key to Castleford’s fine start – Matterson

The club’s talented Academy products have been winning plenty of praise lately and they impressed again yesterday, 17-year-old hooker Daryl Clark shining off the bench with a crucial try to overhaul a 14-6 deficit.

However, Matterson pointed to the contributions of full-back Richard Mathers and wing duo Kirk Dixon, who delivered 14 points, and Nick Youngquest, who scored his fourth try in three games.

“Everyone is talking about our young guys but our back three is playing as well as any back three in the competition,” he said.

“Dean Widders was outstanding as well while we lost Jonny Walker after only a few minutes so had to play under a bit of duress which is good.”

The prop was stretchered off with a knee injury on the quarter mark just moments after coming on but Matterson believes the damage will not be as serious as it initially looked.

Gritty Castleford showed great resolve in the second period having required Youngquest’s long-range try to go in trailing 14-12 following a disappointing first period.

“We were lucky to only be 14-12 down,” added Matterson. “It could have been 14 -6 and could have been 20-6 but we got that runaway try to get us back in it and I was fairly confident once we got in the sheds we’d sort things out. The opponents ran harder and tackled harder in the first half but we had a different attitude in the second and that showed as they didn’t score a point.”

Matterson could afford to leave out experienced trio Ryan Hudson, Nick Fozzard and Steve Snitch while Ryan McGoldrick is still to return from injury and ex-Melbourne Storm centre Willie Isa is still to debut.

Hull KR coach Justin Morgan, meanwhile, has not seen his side win since the opening day in Cardiff. He conceded: “We made too many fundamental errors especially coming out of our own end. I thought we were in the ascendancy at the end of the first half but in the second we couldn’t get to the back end of a set of six as we’d gift the ball back too many times with unforced errors.”

Australian Willie Mason is set to fly into the country today but Rovers are due to be without another Kangaroo forward as captain Mick Vella departed with a knee cartilage and medial ligament damage and is due to undergo a scan today.