Regretful Aspinwall keen to repay Castleford’s faith

Perhaps the only player who will not be out celebrating if Castleford Tigers win Sunday’s Carnegie Challenge Cup semi-final will be Martin Aspinwall.

It is not because he does not dream of Wembley – he lost there with Huddersfield Giants two years ago and suffered a final defeat in 2006 so he is ready to right those wrongs – but more because he is simply not allowed.

The terms of his recent release from jail mean the ex-Great Britain tourist has an electronic tag which requires him being home by 7pm every evening.

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“I’ll be getting straight back there on Sunday but as long as we get to the final, I’m not bothered in the slightest,” he told the Yorkshire Post.

In years gone by, you might not have believed the talented but wayward second-row.

However, an enlightening five-week spell inside Liverpool Prison, where he had to take on a cleaning job to gain crucial gym privileges and watch embarrassed as his visiting parents were routinely searched, has certainly made the combative forward re-assess his mindset.

“It was a real eye-opener for someone like me who is not used to it,” said Aspinwall, handed a four-month sentence for dangerous driving in mid-June after crashing his car following a late night high-speed police pursuit in his hometown of Wigan.

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“Some people are constantly in and out of prison and that’s part of their life.

“They do not have a job, some haven’t even got a home and have to go to hostels when they are out. I knew if I’d keep on doing stupid things I could end up like that too.

“It makes you appreciate things; everything is restricted, everything is taken off you, all your rights.

“It (jail) definitely works and has made me realise what I’ve done, what I’ve got and how lucky I am.

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“It was tough on my parents visiting me. I warned them what it would be like and it wasn’t nice for them to go through all that.

“I wasn’t too bothered about myself but it was all in the papers and thinking about them having to go to work and facing people wasn’t nice either.

“Now I just want to concentrate on staying out of trouble and repaying Cas’ – hopefully by helping us get to Wembley.”

Castleford, who signed Aspinwall on a 12-month deal from Huddersfield last winter, agreed to stand by their troubled player after his conviction and he returned to action against St Helens on Sunday after an early release, just in time to prove his fitness for this weekend’s crucial encounter against Leeds Rhinos.

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“It was a bonus for me when I was in prison knowing they had stood by me,” said the 29-year-old, who had already been given an eight-month suspended jail term in February after occasioning actual bodily harm during a drunken argument.

“I can’t thank them enough. They’ve been really supportive about it all, Terry (Matterson) has been very good and the supporters too.

“It helped me out a lot as I knew I had something to look forward to. Cas’ had also signed me pretty late in the day last December when I was between clubs.

“I’d finished at Huddersfield because of a shoulder injury so there was a little bit of a risk on their part then. I think I started re-paying that faith with my performances before prison but I owe them more now.”

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The hard-running forward had impressed early on, featuring in 14 of their opening 16 games to undoubtedly prove his worth.

It is a sign of head coach Matterson’s belief in the former Wigan player that, in their biggest game in years, he has promised to pick Aspinwall just three weeks after his release.

Maintaining his fitness during his incarceration was tough but that was where his unusual sideline came into play.

“You’d be up at 7.45 every morning and I got a cleaning job from 8.30 until 11.30,” he explained.

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“Then you had dinner in your cell and were locked up until two.

“I’d be back working until four and then, after dinner, again until six before you’d have an hour’s free time before being locked up again at seven.

“But the working – the ‘screws’ helped me get the job – meant I could use the gym and get on a treadmill to keep my fitness up.

“There wasn’t much space elsewhere to do anything.”

Aspinwall, hoping to help Castleford reach their first final since the 1992 defeat against Wigan, continued: “I lost about three or four kilos because the food wasn’t the best.

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“In my position as a back-row you need to keep your weight up so it was a shock to the system in the first week.

“You got enough veg, potatoes and bread, but it was poor quality meat and not much of it.

“People helped me out though with tins of tuna and, after that first week, when I could buy my own from the canteen, I must have ended up with about 20 tins of the stuff.”

The ad hoc programme certainly worked as Aspinwall played 45 minutes in the defeat against St Helens and looked like he had never been away.

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“I thought it might have come a little bit early but I was surprised with how my fitness held up,” he said, ahead of the final preparations for their West Yorkshire rivals.

“Hopefully, we can now give Leeds a good run.

“They will be favourites and they’ll take some beating but we’ll have some players back and I know if we play like we can we can get there.

“We just have to be stronger defensively than we were at Saints, that’s the main thing.”

Aspinwall, denied an appearance in the 2004 showpiece after tearing a hamstring in Wigan’s semi-final against St Helens, is desperate to finally lift the famous trophy.

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But he admits his main goal is keeping on the straight and narrow while earning a new deal and ensuring he never sees the inside of a jail cell again.

He also needs to speak to his parole officer – Castleford play Leeds again in Super League in a week but with an untimely, for him, 8pm kick-off.

It seems the reformed Aspinwall might be in need of another special dispensation.