Castleford Tigers boss Andy Last 'proud' of defensive resilience in face of St Helens onslaught

The Tigers played much of their game in their own half, but only conceded four tries in the 22-0 defeat as they made Saints work hard for their victory.

"I am real proud of the effort, to go toe toe with the best team in the competition for 80 minutes was really satisfying,” said head coach Last.

"I didn’t think it was a 22-0 game. We got undone on two one-on-one misses from scrums then the bounce of the ball and they unpicked us with a reasonable play on the left edge.

"I’m disappointed that the boys didn’t get the rewards for the effort they put in."

Last praised St Helens who were smarting from defeat the previous week and showed tremendous line speed and rued the difficulties the Tigers had of getting into the home half.

He explained: "It was just disappointing that we couldn’t get any field position. We really struggled to get out of our own end.

"We tried to move the ball a little bit, but conditions didn’t help us with our fluency and execution.

"I’m proud we didn’t buckle under the pressure they mounted.

“There were some positives. The ball was in play for some 28 minutes in the first half – which is unheard of – so the fact we were only 10-0 down at half-time considering they had something like 67 per cent domination of territory shows we haven’t buckled and I’m proud of the fact we were able to defend on the tryline for so long and do it so well.

"They had 37 play the balls in our 20 in the first half and we only had seven in their half of the field so we’ve really done it tough field position wise and the fact they didn’t get away from us scoreboard wise is credit to the team."

Last saw another positive from the debut of new on-loan half-back Riley Dean: "He did okay. We didn’t see a great deal of him with good ball because we never got any.

"He had to kick the ball long and I thought he kicked it well. He showed some nice touches and defended okay.”

Last was unhappy with some of the refereeing, particularly regarding the confusing set restart rules that are not often applied consistently.

He added: "We got some harsh calls. The six again rule I’m completely lost. That’s something I am going to have to look at.

"I think we were on the harsh end of some dubious ones, which we didn’t get. St Helens picked up one or two I’m scratching my head at.”