Lee Radford demands response from Castleford Tigers after 'disgusting' Wigan Warriors collapse

The Tigers started brightly against Wigan Warriors only to concede 32 unanswered points on their way to a chastening home defeat.

Castleford travel to the south of France with a scathing assessment from their coach ringing in their ears.

“We’ve got to show a response to last week’s performance,” said Radford.

“I was disgusted with that second half against Wigan. Some of our effort areas were really disappointing for the team and the club.

“If they need to find a ‘why?’ this week, that is it. We’ve got to respond to what we tossed up.”

Castleford are only two points adrift of the top six heading into tomorrow’s game despite losing eight of their 14 fixtures so far.

Radford believes the race for the play-offs is wide open - but he has stressed the need for improvement if the Tigers are to stay in the hunt.

“I understand they’re in a relegation battle and are going to be desperate, but we’ve got to show desperation to finish in that top six,” he said.

“It looks like it’s a six-ball race from fifth downwards. We’ve got to start competing a little bit harder than we have been doing.

“They’ve been consistent throughout the year. They complete really high and play a low-risk brand of rugby.

“With Corey Norman coming in, they’re opening up the size of the field a little bit and putting a bit of air on the ball. We’re probably going to get challenged a little bit more.

“The full-back (Olly Ashall-Bott) is a fantastic player and very dangerous on kick returns. That has to be an improvement for us from last week.

“We’ve got to defend better than we are doing and put more focus on the effort areas in defence.”

Radford stopped short of saying Castleford’s campaign is at a crossroads.

“You look at the first half of our season and we lost five out of six and then you can go on a five-game winning streak,” he added.

“It’s easily turned around and it’s easily lost as well. We’ve got to maintain our high standards around the stadium from Monday to Friday which allows us to play our best football on a weekend. That’s something we’ve got to drive really hard.

“I still remain fully confident we can make the six. That’s what everyone is striving towards, even if Saturday didn’t look like that. As a group we’re desperate to get there.”