The Good, The Bad and the Ugly: Round 17
The Good
Castleford showed class, grit and determination to edge past Warrington in an epic encounter on Friday night. The Tigers were hit hard by injuries before the game and threw debuts to young fullback Callum Turner and veteran outside back Quentin Lauli-Togagae at stand-off. Both starred for Cas, with the 18-year-old grabbing a try and ‘Q’ crossing once and setting up another in a man of the match award-winning display. Daryl Powell’s men were missing Luke Gale, Ben Roberts, Paul McShane and Greg Eden, but it didn’t stop them powering over the Wolves at the end in an utterly enjoyable affair. Jacob Trueman is growing as a half and the likes of Alex Foster are having a great season.
Also a nod to Hull FC, who have been battling injuries of their own. Lee Radford has always been a big believer in youngsters and player development, and the coach has been forced to blood several new faces in recent weeks. They haven’t disappointed. On Friday they stood up in pounding a poor Salford side. At half-time they had raced to a 37-0 lead and the Red Devils had no answers. Jack Downs and Jack Logan were impressive, Liam Harris is not letting anyone down, while Hakim Miloudi is an eccentric handful and Masi Matongo gets better and better with every game. The Black & Whites will be a real force to be reckoned with when Marc Sneyd, Albert Kelly, Sika Manu and the rest are back to full fitness. The future is certainly bright at the KCOM.
Respect to Catalans as well as their resurgence rolls on. Their 20-point win over Widnes moved them up to ninth and nearly out of the bottom four. They are now just one point below Huddersfield, who themselves are climbing out of the mire too and have snuck into eighth place. The Giants knocked off neighbours Leeds to step back into the top eight in Simon Woolford’s second official game in charge. Both seem to be back on the right track and gathering momentum.
The Bad
Where to begin? It’s hard to go past Widnes and Salford. The Vikings have now lost 10 in a row, while the Red Devils have dropped six games straight. Widnes sacked Denis Betts and replaced him with Francis Cummins, but they couldn’t beat the Dragons in Perpignan. Cummins needs time with his team, but with only six more games left before the competition splits it is time he doesn’t have.
For the Red Devils it goes from bad to worse. Friday’s first 40 minutes was one of the worst of any Super League side this season. They made two errors in the first four minutes and some of their try-line defence was appalling. To be fair, Salford did have their fair share of bad luck, with two of Hull FC’s tries from interceptions. Craig Kopczak was also held up over the try-line by a brilliant try-saving tackle by Jamie Shaul. But Jack Littlejohn at fullback is not the answer and the side is clearly missing the creativity and vision of the likes of Gareth O’Brien and Kris Brinning.
The Ugly
Hull KR preached about having a good club culture and sending the right message when they got rid of Albert Kelly at the end of 2016. Since then they have signed Justin Carney and more recently, picked up disgraced Wigan forward Joel Tomkins. With the Robins fighting to avoid the Middle Eights, Tomkins will give them punch and experience in the back-row. But the issue is, if you talk about morals and setting high standards, you need to back up your words with actions. In that vein the Tomkins move is a puzzler.
