'Smart decision': Castleford Tigers boss Lee Radford discusses disciplinary changes and challenge facing Liam Watts

The 2022 campaign was dominated by disciplinary issues following a crackdown on foul play.

After dishing out an unprecedented number of suspensions, the Rugby Football League has tinkered with the on-field misconduct rules.

There is now a greater emphasis on fines rather than suspensions for lower grade offences as a way of "increasing the accountability of players for their on-field actions”, something Radford championed throughout last year.

Leeds Rhinos forward James Donaldson became the first player to benefit after avoiding a ban for a grade B offence in the Boxing Day game against Wakefield Trinity.

"It's a smart decision," said Radford.

"As a competition, the amount of games we're playing is really high compared to the NRL, for example.

"The strain we put on our players is already challenging enough without having five or six missing every round through suspension. That makes it even more difficult for your squads and tests them even more.

"As much as the supporters want to see young players coming through, they want to see them playing because of their talent and attitude, not just because there's nobody else to play.

"If you looked at the back end of last year with the injuries every club had, that was the case in so many teams."

No player was punished more often than Liam Watts last year, with the Castleford prop picking up six bans in a hugely frustrating campaign.

The veteran forward has taken steps to improve his discipline during pre-season in an effort to stay off the match review panel's radar in 2023.

Watts, who turns 33 later this year, is having to break habits of a lifetime.

"It's a challenge for Liam," said Radford.

"The players of that age have been told from such an early stage in their careers to put as much pressure as they can on ballplayers and not allow them all the time in the world that a good half-back wants. That's a game of cat and mouse – they want as much time on the ball as they can and we want to take that away from them.

"Sometimes when you're working that hard from the inside to try and get to a ballplayer, you've got a fraction of a second to decide whether the ball has left his hand or not. They came down really hard on that last year and the adaptation is going to take some time.

“We've had time to work on it this pre-season which has been a benefit, whereas last time around it almost got dropped on us going into the friendlies."

Watts, who missed the previous friendly through suspension, will have the opportunity to put his modified game into practice on Sunday when the Tigers travel to Keighley Cougars for Jake Webster's testimonial game.

"If he was available, he would have played against Featherstone as well on New Year's Eve," said Radford, who revealed Niall Evalds, Jacob Miller, Gareth Widdop and Paul McShane are all being wrapped in cotton wool. "Liam will participate this week."