The Greatest Game

Less than a week before the kick off of the Super League season and the inevitable prediction threads all point to new boys Castleford Tigers lounging at the bottom of the pile come September.

Sporting Life and The Times have thrown their hat into the ring with their thoughts on the coming year and, despite having very different thoughts on who’ll be lifting the trophy at Old Trafford come the end of the season, both point to a long, hard and ultimately disappointing season for the Tigers.

Of course, this prediction is to be expected, as it was for Hull KR last year and the Tigers in 2006. The newly-promoted side has more of an uphill struggle to compete with the leap up to the top flight. It takes plenty of hard work - and a large slice of luck - to defy the doubters.

But Hull KR did it in 2007, and the blueprint they used has been copied by Castleford this year. Once the right players were on board in the second half of their National League 1 season last term, the Tigers were never threatened in their ascent back to the elite, and it is this confident, talented, young squad that will be relishing the chance to compete with some of the best the game has to offer. The stability of a quality coach too in Terry Matterson is paramount to Castleford performing this term. Matterson almost performed miracles in 2006 with a hotch-botch of a team stuck together out of desperation to get bodies on board. A squad of 28 in 2006, with a handful of hungry youngsters and a couple of stars in Danny Nutley and Willie Manu managed to be one point off a top six place with six rounds of the season to go.

And that is the major argument for a hard season ahead for the Tigers - numbers. Running with a squad of 22 - six of who missed out on the team’s friendly at Hull KR last Sunday - is simply not enough to deal with an intense Super League season. This squad has six fewer bodies than the squad that started the season in 2006 but people have to remember that four of the 2006 squad didn’t start a game and only had a handful of substitute appearances (Keith Mason, Aaron Smith, Ryan Boyle, Grant Edwards) and a host of first team players only played a few games (Damien Blanch, Brad Davis, Tommy Haughey, Andy Kain, Matt Whittaker). These players are the ‘bodies’ that the Tigers are missing at the moment and, if the side can stay injury-free, there is a chance that they can pull off a few surprises.

Of course the likelihood of a youthful team staying injury-free in a season of the toughest sport on earth is small and Castleford have already been wrapping their players in cotton wool before the big kick off. That is why the importance of recruitment throughout the season to patch up a depleted squad is paramount.

In 2006, the difference between the players who rarely played and those who were brought in was significant. Matterson brought in Danny Brough, Adam Fletcher, Peter Lupton and Paul Franze over the course of the 2006 season. With the exception of rugby union convert Franze who left complaining that the sport was “harder than he had envisaged”, the recruitment was very fruitful, with Brough revolutionising the Tigers attack (and playing a key role in their 2007 promotion), Fletcher notching 8 tries in 13 games and Lupton adding an extra element of creativity to the attack. Matterson’s season recruitment came up trumps again in 2007, with Anthony Thackeray giving uncertainty and a host of new options to the attack and Danny Williams grabbing a hat-trick on his debut and having the knock-on effect of moving Stuart Donlan to full back - a decision that made any high ball safe.

But if Matterson’s outstanding coaching ability and proven track record to mid-season recruitment is not enough to comfort Tigers fans that the season won’t be too bad, the comfort of no relegation is always a welcome safety net. That comfort zone could allow the players to play their own game without worrying about forcing the pass to make things happen. The Tigers will be able to play rugby rather than trying to stop so-called superior opposition from playing and we as spectators will be all the better for it.

The ingredients for Super League survival are stability, quality and a great coach. With a mix of some of the most promising youth in the country in Joe Westerman, Anthony Thackeray, Ryan Boyle and Michael Shenton mixing with NRL winners Brent Sherwin and Awen Guttenbiel, the Tigers have the quality and a superb base from which to grow. They’ll still be towards the bottom after their final game against Bradford in September, but it would be folly to put your mortgage on it just yet.

Andrew Henderson image taken from BBC.co.uk
Terry Matterson image taken from Castigers.net (usage policy)