Lee Radford hopes prolific Castleford Tigers winger Greg Eden can enjoy injury-free 2022

The 31-year-old marked his first appearance of the season with a hat-trick against Hull FC and has not looked back since.

Eden made it 11 tries in seven games in Castleford’s 34-4 win at neighbours Wakefield Trinity, a streak that has coincided with the club’s upturn in form.

“He’s had a different pre-season to everyone else physically and he has a different week to everybody else in terms of his content and what we’re doing with him,” said Radford, as Castleford bounced back from their Challenge Cup exit at Hull KR the previous week.

“Touch wood, at the minute he’s on the field every week which is something he hasn’t done consistently over the last few seasons.

“Hopefully we can maintain that because the more he’s on the field for us the better we are.”

Eden endured a frustrating 2021 season with a series of hamstring problems limiting him to nine appearances.

After the game against Wakefield, Radford revealed the extent of Eden’s recent issues.

“He’s come back from a hamstring operation, his second one,” continued the Castleford head coach.

“He’s had some real issues neurally in his calves and that was a bit of a head scratcher for us throughout the pre-season.

“We couldn’t find anything there.

“Matty Crowther has done a great job with him and managed to nip that in the backside.

“He’s a racehorse. He doesn’t participate in double days and how he preps for a training session is different to an old diesel engine like Joe Westerman.”

Only Ken Sio, Tommy Makinson, Jai Field and Josh Charnley have scored more than Eden’s seven tries in Super League despite the Castleford man missing the first three games.

Radford was keen to stress the speedster brings more to the side than tries alone.

“He needs half a chance and usually puts it away,” said Radford.

“But he’s a danger running laterally.

“For a big bloke who’s fatigued, when somebody skips across you like that with that leg speed and can step off either foot, it’s dangerous.

“He’s very good out of backfield as well for us.”

Thursday’s win over Wakefield made it back-to-back victories in Super League and they will look to notch a third-straight success against Leeds Rhinos on Monday.