'We will work hard to hold onto Shenton'

TERRY MATTERSON says Castleford Tigers will not break the bank to keep England centre Michael Shenton at The Jungle.

The 23-year-old scored his second Super League hat-trick yesterday to help Castleford defeat Bradford.

He will be out of contract at the end of the season and is believed to be set for a move to St Helens as a replacement for Australian star Matt Gidley.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Matterson insists they still hope to persuade their homegrown Academy product to re-sign, like they did two years ago when Bradford came looking.

"We had a battle last time and kept Shenny and we're working hard again," he said.

"We want him to stay but at the end of the day we've only got a certain amount of money we can spend.

"We can't afford to pay way over on one player. We want to keep them all and we've never really lost anyone we didn't want to keep in the last few years.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"But we'll have to see. It was good to have Shenny back today. That was a big boost and he showed what he can do."

Shenton returned from a knee injury to help secure Castleford a third successive win and leave them just one point off eighth-placed Bradford.

Matterson added: "This win is another boost to our play-off hopes and a performance like that has been building.

"We've struggled a bit on our last-play options but a lot of our defence was really good even if it didn't show on the scoreboard.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"We completed at over 90 per cent and had to dig in at times with Brett Ferres sin-binned and Joe Arundel off injured but confidence is rising in the squad."

Bradford coach Steve McNamara had Jamie Langley back from a

two-month lay-off and the England loose forward toiled hard, as did captain Andy Lynch on his return from knee surgery.

But the visitors, who led four times until Shenton scored his second in the 73rd minute, were made to pay for having failed to punish Castleford earlier on.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

"I'm not sure how we got ourselves in a position to lose that game," said McNamara.

"For long periods we looked likely to push on and move away with it but whenever we got in front we made an error or gave a penalty away and let Castleford back in."

McNamara conceded a lack of belief – his side have now failed to win in six games – may have affected their performance.

"Maybe confidence is going and there was a bit of edginess there," he said.

"But there was no need to be; we gave ourselves some great opportunities.

"It's frustrating. We fought and scrapped very hard to get ourselves out of this lull."