Salford Red Devils v Castleford Tigers: Craig Lingard talks belief and new targets as visitors aim for season high

After gaining belief from running Old Trafford hopefuls Wigan Warriors and Hull KR close, Castleford have found a winning formula.

"It's given us a lot of confidence that what we're doing is the right thing," said Lingard.

"The players have bought into that. They're turning losing situations into winning ones, whereas in previous games we turned potential winning situations into losing ones because we didn't have that knowledge and experience of winning games.

"We knew that we could win games but the players needed to know that as well. They've certainly got that over the last three games that we've won.

"Confidence builds and everything that you get around winning becomes addictive. Hopefully that feeling we've got now can stay for a few more weeks."

The form spike has come too late to make a realistic push for the play-offs, meaning Lingard must balance the thirst for wins with a long-term view.

The Castleford boss will use the closing weeks of the campaign to expose the club's best academy products to Super League.

"What we've got to do between now and the end of the season is start blooding some of these younger players," he said.

"It's probably unrealistic that we'll make the play-offs so it might be that we get to the last four or five games of the season and chuck some of these younger kids in, whether that's in the 17 or the 19 just to get them used to being in and around the matchday squad.

"I certainly think some of these younger players will play. As a coach you want to win as many games as you can and it would be weakening the side to put a younger player in because they're inexperienced and some of them will be making their debut – but we need to look at the bigger picture, which is what we've done all season.

"If we're going to be successful over the next few years, these youngsters are going to play a massive part in that."

Castleford are unrecognisable from the side that flirted with relegation last season, showing boundless passion, effort and commitment to give the fans a team to get behind again.

Last week's defeat of Catalans took the Tigers beyond their 2023 tally with nine matches to spare, with all 13 points earned during a 12-game period.

The 2017 League Leaders' Shield winners have a long way to go before they are back competing at the top end of Super League but they are ahead of where Lingard expected them to be at this stage of their development as an inexperienced team.

"Our target at the start of the season was to do better than we did last year," he said.

"If we could have done that on a significantly reduced budget, it would have been a success. We've already surpassed last year's total with nine games left to play.

"We're not going to sit back now, think our job is done and we're going to lose our next nine games. That's certainly not our plan.

"We're going to see where we can get this team between now and the end of the season.

"We've ticked off one box which was to do better than what we did last year. How many other boxes can we tick off now?"

The Tigers have spent much of the season in 10th spot but head to Salford Red Devils on Saturday afternoon knowing a fourth straight win would take them above Huddersfield Giants into ninth.

With eighth-placed Leigh Leopards next up at home on Thursday – the first of two trips to WF10 for Adrian Lam’s men – Castleford could yet achieve a finish that would exceed all expectations, even those inside the walls of Wheldon Road.

"We said at the start of the season that if we could finish top of the bottom four, that would be an unreal achievement for us," added Lingard.

"The fact that now is in sight, it's certainly something we want to try and do.

"We've got Leigh to play twice so who knows how high we could finish."