Adam Milner set to leave Castleford Tigers to join Huddersfield Giants

Tigers head coach Andy Last has revealed that hooker or back rower Milner would not be involved in tomorrow’s Super League game at Huddersfield as he was in talks to join them after making the decision to leave the club for who he has spent the whole of his career with.

“He’s potentially on the move, that hasn’t been finalised with regard to the paperwork so that is why he’s not playing for at the weekend.

"It’s potentially with immediate effect, just got to dot the Is and cross the Ts to make sure it’s satisfactory for both clubs.

"Three weeks ago he made it to 300 games for Castleford Tigers against Leigh Leopards. He is sat on 301 now and has been a great servant to the club.

"He’s a player who has represented the club with great respect and great distinction and played with great desire, but he made the decision that he felt was in his best interest. There is an opportunity for him at Huddersfield, not only for this year but next, which we weren’t in a position to guarantee him for next year so we didn’t want to stand in his way.

“We wish him all the best, hopefully that gets finalised and we will wish him the best and say our goodbyes.”

On how Milner will be replaced in the squad, Last explained: “The position Adz plays in we are able to fill from within, but we are looking into the market to bring someone in between now and the end of the season.

"But it’s a tough market, we don’t to make signings for the sake of signings.”

Last is pleased to have several experienced players back in his squad for the Giants game, but revealed further bad news on full-back Niall Evalds.

He added: “I’m looking forward to having some senior blokes back and hopefully they will give us some direction and help us to put in a good performance.

"We’ve got Gareth Widdop back and we can potentially give him an opportunity in the full-back position and move Broady (Jack Broadbent) into the half-back position. He’s excelled in a couple of games he’s played there, it gets him close to the ball and allows him to run.

“Niall unfortunately requires surgery on his pectoral tear and he will miss the majority of the season, potentially the season, so it’s not good news.

"It’s a huge blow. At the beginning of the year you look and you go if we can get Niall Evalds, England international and very good player in Super League, on the field at full-back and that experience of Widdop and miller alongside him with Westerman at 13 and McShane you’ve got a really competitive spine. But I think they’ve been on the field together once or twice so we’ve had to do it tough.

"We’ve had some difficult selection decision in those spine positions.

“Greg (Eden) is a couple of weeks away, he’s just coming back from a hamstring, which has tracked down into a bit of a calf issue.

“We have to box clever with Greg, he is a high performance athlete and we need to make sure he is 100% right before we consider him again for selection.

“Albert Vete is a calf, history has repeated itself from his time at Hull KR. He picked it up five or six weeks ago, we got him back to something like and thought we was okay, he returned to running and felt his calf tighten up again. We had to go back to the drawing board and had it re-scanned so we’ve got to box clever with load.”