Castleford Tigers boss believes his team need to be better in key moments
Castleford Tigers boss Ryan Carr wants his players to brush up on their execution skills after seeing a promising display fail to lead to points in the home defeat to Leigh Leopards.
While some controversial big decisions against them may have contributed to Tigers’ winning run ending at two head coach Carr also believes an inability to deal with big moments was a key part in the 24-14 defeat.
He said: "It was a game of moments on one hand when if we’d got it right we win. We didn’t, we lost and it’s probably what it came down to.
"We did a lot of things well to our plan. If you take away a couple of moments – I think the first try we did enough to defend it and should have been better there and the last try with the kick against the run of play, if we get our execution right I reckon we make a line break. Instead they score so that’s a 12-point swing.
“I feel like we were us and we are starting to expose our identity and how we want to play. There was a lot you can see – there was some really good attack and some really effort-based defensive stuff. We’ve got to be better in the key moments and close games come down to that.
"While we weren’t on the right side of the scoreboard we’ll take a lot away from it, a lot of confidence in a lot of areas.”
Carr refused to be drawn on the decisions of the officials, revealing he had already been fined this season.
But he is clearly not happy with what he has seen from the refereeing since coming over to England and before the game questioned the rules that led to Semi Valemei being banned for three matches for attempting to put a player in a recovery position.
"When your back’s against the wall and you’re feeling like you’re not getting much you’ve just got to fight your way through that and we’ve got to be a team that can absorb that and come out. If we had got those moments right I think it would have been the opposite scoreline.
"Everyone knows my thoughts because I’ve said them many times before.
"The players speak to me and they were super frustrated. Maps was frustrated that he gets forearmed and elbowed to the head and for my player I feel bad, but you just have to get on with it.”