Rob Richardson announced as new Head Coach of the Tigresses

Castleford Tigers Women can officially announce that Rob Richardson will replace Matty Faulkner as the Head Coach of the Tigresses side. 

Rob Richardson will step up from his role as the assistant coach to Head Coach. Richardson spoke to ctrlfc.com about his pride to take the job on and what he would like to see going forwards. 

“It’s massive for me. It’s something that I’ve aspired to do and step up myself within the club since I started doing things quite a few years ago. I started with the scouting and talent identification. The club is close to my heart so to get an opportunity to lead a team at the club is massive for me personally.” 

“We’ve built really well in the off-season and there’s been a lot of new faces. Everybody has clicked together and Matty has left us in a really good place with his contacts outside of Castleford and myself and the other coaches are ready to take this job on and hopefully have a really successful year.” 

Richardson has been involved throughout the pre-season campaign for the Tigresses and has overseen the changes in the numbers, systems and the overall atmosphere within the group. He believes that this group that has been put together are more than capable of being at the top end of the table when the play-offs roll around. 

“We’re loving what we’re seeing and have seen over pre-season. We’ve got good numbers this year which is something that we didn’t have a lot of last year. There’s a lot of people driving each other on. The girls are learning different things from each other and learning as a group. We’re pushing each other to new goals and new territory.” 

“I think we’ve got to look at pushing and challenging teams this year. The team we’ve put together, I believe that is a realistic goal this year. We’re not there to make up the numbers, we’re there to compete and win games and push to the end of season play-off system and push into Super League 1 for next year.” 

Faulkner had been in charge of the Tigresses for the last 12 months and steered them to safety in last season’s Super League season, after victories over Wakefield Trinity and Leigh Miners Rangers. 

Matty will hold his time in charge of the Women’s side in high regard and talks of his highlights throughout his tenure. 

“Your mind goes straight to winning. The Leigh game was special because the girls worked so hard and we’d done a lot through the year. I feel so privileged to have work with the group and shape the programme at Cas over the last year. I’ve worked with some amazing people over the last year so it’s not so much the experiences for me that are the highlights, it’s the people I get to work with.” 

Matty will not be leaving the club, he will continue his role as Player Performance Manager, looking after the College and Academy day-to-day. 

“My job role has changed over the last few months to doing more work with the scholarship, college, academy and reserves. I’m looking more at the recruitment side of things, which means I've not had as much time to work with the girls as I would have liked. It was always the plan to do 12 months with the Women’s team, to help them rebuild and allow them to have a stronger team at the end of the year. I think we’ve done that and achieved those goals.” 

“I wouldn’t be moving on if the team wasn’t in a much better place than when I took over. We showed that we had come a long way by winning games at the back end of the season and we’ve recruited well over the offseason which has allowed them to come back a lot stronger. I think they’ll do really well this year and Rob Richardson and Mat Lancaster will be taking over the roles. They’re both really strong characters and they’ll do a great job. I’ll still be here to support them.” 

“Rob has been around the Women’s game for a very long time and last year he came in and supported me straight away with Watto. Rob will be outstanding. He’s got a good coaching philosophy so good luck to him and I know the team is in very capable hands.”