Castleford Tigers boss Lee Radford pleased with fighting spirit shown in 2022

Radford’s first season in charge at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle has been a tough one with injury after injury denying him the chance to get his best team out on the field.

To finish seventh in the circumstances has been a good effort and the spirit within the club remains intact – as shown in their brave display and heartbreaking narrow defeat in the big play-offs decider against Leeds Rhinos, which Radford reckons has given him plenty to work with.

He said: “I was desperate to finish in the top six to show the club was going in the right direction and taking a step in the way we want to go.

"Unfortunately that’s not happened, but I’m incredibly proud of the performance (against Leeds).

"The performance gives us something to go away and work on.

"If we had finished like we did against Salford we would have swanned off into pre-season with a different mindset. But the fighting spirit shown and throughout the season – it’s only round one where we had our spine on the field, since then we’ve been makeshift – has made me a proud coach on a losing team, which is very rare.

"The season couldn’t have got off to a worse start. With the refereeing changes we were the most penalised team in the competition – most red cards, most yellow cards up until round six.

"That changed thankfully and we got a bit of consistency in our selection and form and we came back swinging towards the back end.

"I’m really pleased and we’ve got something to work with definitely.”

Willie Poching pays tribute to Wakefield Trinity's 'great servants'

On the Tigers display against the Rhinos when only a try with the last play of the game denied them, Radford said: "I am incredibly proud of the performance.

"With the ball we looked like we didn’t have a one, six and seven, but defensively the efforts the players showed time and time again were outstanding.

"They left everything out there, but unfortunately it got us at the back end. We needed to start big and I thought we did that – our defence was really frustrating them.

"Some of those efforts in backfield when we’re chasing back on line breaks was a real pleasure to watch.”