Castleford suffer Wakefield loss

The Fords saw another opportunity go begging after Paul McShane made an error at the ruck and just a couple of minutes later Cas had to switch on defensively for the first time. A dangerous Jacob Miller high boot was initially caught by Bureta Faraimo but a good chase from Trinity forced the winger to take the ball out of play. The visitors didn’t make the most of it though as they knocked on just a couple of metres away from the line.

On the fifteen-minute mark, Trin grabbed the opener. The visitors were awarded an offside call inside their half and pushed forward. On the final tackle it was Liam Hood who spun away from two Tigers defenders and got the ball down. Mason Lino was on kicking duty for Wakefield and the #7 duly slotted the conversion from in front of the posts.

Radford’s side were trying to respond but were struggling to find their killer instinct in attack as a pass from Joe Westerman was too hot for Eden to handle, to the disappointment of the home crowd.

The Tigers’ slow start continued, and they were lucky to get away with a mistake from Olpherts who knocked on inside his own 20. Lino fired a pass into full-back Jamie Shaul who tried his luck by racing to the corner but after a lengthy decision by the video referee, it was decided that a combination of Mamo and Kenny Edwards forced him out of play.

In the closing minutes of the half Castleford thought they had got the try they were desperate for before the interval when Faraimo looked to have smuggled the ball down by the corner post. The try was given on the field, although after another long deliberation by the video referee, the decision was to award no try.

With moments left the Fords’ first-half frustration grew further when Matty Ashurst got on the end of a Miller short ball to barge over. Lino added the extras for the scoreboard to read 18-0 to the visitors as the players headed back into the sheds.

After a back-and-forth period to open the second half with both teams cancelling each other out, a knock-on from a Richardson bomb by Lee Kershaw provided Cas with a chance. The Tigers couldn’t capitalise and to compound Castleford’s frustration Richardson’s kick on the last was collected by Murphy and the outside back saw off Mamo’s tackle to go the full length of the field. Lino put his kick through the posts for his side to lead by 24 points with half an hour to go.

Wakefield added their fifth with 22 minutes remaining after a Qareqare spill forward in the tackle gave David Fifita the opportunity to attack the Cas line. The big man bulldozed his way through a couple of Tigers defenders to score. Lino made no mistake with the kick.

The Tigers did get on the scoresheet an hour in with Richardson opportunistically chasing after his own kick which was followed by a fumble by Lino on the line and the Fords’ number seven pounced. The scrum-half then converted his own try to add the two points.