Star man Junior Moors happy to lay down benchmark with Castleford Tigers

The hard-running second-row is in his third season at Wheldon Road since joining from Melbourne Storm and has made a big impact on their rise to the top of the table.

Samoan Moors was the club’s player of the year last time, starting in 18 of his 22 games, but has been named as a replacement by Daryl Powell in all six games this term.

However, he says it is not an issue while his explosive impact has certainly been aiding Castleford’s stellar form ahead of tonight’s visit from Huddersfield.

“The change to the bench is fine with me – I can do either, whether it’s starting or off the interchange bench,” said Moors.

“If Powelly wants to get the best of me off the bench then that’s fine, and it’s a role I am enjoying, to be honest.

“I’ll do that for as long as he wants because I’m getting used to it, too.

“The first year here, being in England and so far away from home, was tough initially.

“I probably wasn’t ready for how tough it would be, but I feel much more comfortable now knowing what’s ahead of me in the season and how long it lasts.

“The potential here is big; we’ve got a great squad and got some great boys in through the door so there’s a good mix here.”

Castleford were trailing 14-0 at home to Catalans Dragons last Sunday and in danger of successive defeats when Moors came off the bench to kick-start them towards a 43-26 win.

Auckland-born Moors, 30, said: “We got the ball quite quickly after I came on and things just snowballed.

“I can’t take any credit for the turnaround, though, even though things went in our favour when I came on.

“I guess it could have been easy to panic, but the boys were calm; I got that feeling straight away, and once we were in the arm-wrestle we started to rack up the points.

“It was a really good response, especially after losing at Salford the week before. We went into our shell in that match.

“We didn’t play the type of footy we’ve become accustomed to and it cost us so we need to stick to our guns in the future and, hopefully, we can continue that this weekend. Giants are a good side, though, make no mistake about it, and there’s things we need to improve on.”