Castleford Tigers prepared to take their time on decision on new head coach

​Director of rugby Chris Chester has been put in temporary charge and did not get off to a great start with a defeat to bottom of the table Salford, but the club have said they will not be hurried into a decision of identifying the right candidate for the job.

They have been encouraged, however, by a large number of coaches who have put themselves in the frame.

"There's no fixed no time limit on it,” owner Martin Jepson said on Sky. “We definitely need the person in charge for the start of pre-season and to have bought into the squad we have for next year.

"There's no need to rush into it in the next week or two, the time limit is to have him available for the start of next year.

"We have been very pleasantly surprised at the number of applications we've had without actually going out and touting for applications, both from this country and Australia.

"We've got a long list of people who've put their hands up and I'd like to think we've been doing something right to have attracted that number of people because I'm not sure we would have attracted them 12 months ago."

Jepson explained the decision to sack McGuire, saying: “We just felt that we’re in a reset period and we’re already in recruitment drive for next year. We’ve got plans for what we want to do next year and we just felt that a change of direction was needed.

"We're really looking ahead to next season. We start our planning now for next year and part of that was looking at our coaching set-up.

"You have to make hard decisions and look at how things are moving at this particular moment in time and really plan ahead as to the direction of travel we want to move in over the next 12-24 months.

"We need to get more out of the players. I don't think the players are as bad as the performances are suggesting.

"I'm not suggesting we are the finished article - we're miles from there at the moment – but it's a rebuilding process.

"I inherited a team on a certain salary cap budget and it's difficult to turn those things around overnight because you've got players on contracts.

"We've been reshaping the team as the season's gone on – look at the numbers on the back of our shirts, we are into the 40s.

"I inherited a club where we were weak in certain areas and we've been trying to backfill that.

"Next season we can't be doing that again, we need to be starting the season with the same squad we want to finish the season up with."

Interim head coach Chester reiterated Jepson’s comments about taking time to get the appointment right, but hopes he is not in charge for the rest of the season.

He explained: “We’ve got some really, really good, strong applicants and we’ll take our time with it.

"I don’t want to be in the hot seat for the rest of the year. We’ll have to see what unfolds over the next few weeks.

“We’ve got to make sure we bring the right coach in and the right players. We can’t rush into making those kind of decisions.”