Castleford Tigers boss sees value of 'fresh start' for 2025 season

Jepson made a huge decision in his first week after taking over when he changed the man in charge of first team affairs to go for a “clean slate” for the 2025 Super League season.

Lingard had spoken of a three-year plan to build the club up again and went after just one year of that with the Tigers having achieved the first objective of remaining in Super League.

They also finished above two teams despite having one of the smallest budgets as money had to be spent on improving the ground more than the team.

But Jepson, who was on the board initially as an investor before taking control once the season was over, wanted to take the Tigers in a different direction and that involved a change of head coach.

In an appearance on the COYFCast podcast he explained: “It shouldn’t be a reflection on Craig. Craig did a very good job in difficult circumstances last year and there’s certainly there’s nothing personal in it.

“I’m a big believer that if you’re going to make change, you’ve got to get on with it and do it early. The longer that you take to make change, the less likely you are to do it.

“I just felt that a change was appropriate for the club at that moment in time. We’ve all talked about this three-year plan, how that develops. For me, we needed to move in a slightly different direction this coming season.

“It’s a tough call, but I think, obviously I believe the long term it will be the right call for the club. I just felt it was better to do it.

“When you’ve got pre-season about to start, you don’t want to be chopping and changing halfway through pre-season.

"I wanted to have a clean slate, start afresh and get moving in what I think will be an exciting direction of the club going forward.”

Lifelong Cas fan Jepson has still to decide if he will take up the option he has to buy the rest of the shares in the club he does not currently own, to become sole owner.

He added: “The deal I signed is still under option, the option expires at the end of January.

"Ian (Fulton) has stepped down as director and that gives me full control, it also gives me full responsibility for all costs. So, it’s totally on my shoulders, if we need to put more money in, I need to make more investment over a few months.

“It is a big responsibility but I’m taking that on to try and structure everything so we get the right people in place on and off the field.

"There’s quite a lot to be done off the field as well as on the field itself. So that’s where we are at the moment.”