Castleford Tigers produce best all-round display of season to beat Toulouse

A complete performance saw Radford's men race over for five tries with their French visitors only managing one late effort.

The Tigers led 20-0 at half-time after scoring three unanswered tries, all of which were goaled by Gareth O'Brien to go with a penalty he also landed.

After a quiet start in which the two teams tested each out without taking too many risks Cas had the first chance when Bureta Faraimo made a fantastic long range break and handed on to Niall Evalds, but the full-back was taken down 10 metres short of the line and the move came to nothing moments later when Greg Eden's kick went over the back line.

The first try came on 12 minutes as smart handling by Paul McShane and Jordan Turner gave Eden the chance to dive over in the left corner.

Toulouse exerted some pressure for a spell and forced a drop-out, but handling errors were costing them attacking opportunities.

Cas were on the board again on 24 minutes when on a last tackle play Eden did not have room to squeeze over on the wing so sent a grubber kick ahead, which turned out to be perfect for Evalds to collect to score.

O'Brien's penalty three minutes later made it 14-0 and the Tigers scored again as Adam Milner finished off a bulldozing move down the middle started by Liam Watts' half-break and superb offload to O'Brien.

The second half was not so entertaining as the visitors had more of the possession and struggled to do much with it with Cas producing their best tackling and defensive performance of the season.

The Tigers extended their lead when Jake Mamo produced a strong finish after taking a smart pass from Evalds and O'Brien continued his perfect kicking record with a good conversion.

Watts - who made a big contribution as an interchange player - then helped himself to a try with a solo effort from 20 metres out and O'Brien's goal made it 32-0.

Toulouse did force a drop-out, but despite having 11 tackles near the home line terrific Tigers tackling kept them out.

The French team kept going to the final hooter, however, scoring a try through Tony Gigot a minute from time, which was goaled by Chris Hankinson.

At that point they were down to 12 men with Lucas Albert sin-binned for kicking out at Mamo.

Tigers head coach Radford was understandably pleased with his side's performance.

He said: "I thought it was a very disciplined performance, not disciplined in the sense of penalties, but in what we did.

"The completion percentage in the first half was really high.

"It was disappointing to concede the try at the end, it was an error for our structure. But to keep them to six points was pleasing.

"I think it was our most complete performance.

"I always felt when we got our troops back you would see a spike in our performance.

"After the first couple of rounds it took a while to fall into the shapes we wanted and the way we wanted to play. But what we're seeing now is our defence looks a lot stronger."

Cas lost several players to injury and illness during the game, but Radford hopes all three will be fine for next weekend's Challenge Cup tie at Hull KR.

He added: "Kenny Edwards has got a slight calf problem. Joe Westerman reported sickness over the last 24 hours and Greg Eden got a bang to his ribs, nothing serious, he should be okay for next week."

O'Brien also came off late on with a head injury, but it is too early to tell if he will be available for the cup tie.

Castleford: Evalds; Faraimo, Mamo, Turner, Eden; Trueman, O'Brien; Griffin, McShane, Massey, Edwards, Lawler, Westerman. Subs: Watts, Milner, Fonua, Matagi.

Toulouse: Ashall-Bott; Marcon, Armitage, Hankinson, Russell; Gigot, Albert; Navarrete, Marion, Sangare, Peyroux, Dixon, Paulo. Subs: Pelissier, Peuch, Garbutt, Cunningham.

Scorers - Castleford: Tries Eden, Evalds, Milner, Mamo, Watts; goals O'Brien 6. Toulouse: Try Gigot; goal Hankinson.

Referee: Marcus Griffiths.

Attendance: 7,067.