Craig Lingard wants Castleford Tigers to back up their hard work by being smarter

​The Tigers continued to show spirit despite going down 30-8 at Warrington Wolves, but have lost their first three Betfred Super League games and head coach Lingard felt the latest game was their most disappointing.

He said: "We said at the start of the season that isn’t was not going to be an overnight success and we are not expecting to go out walloping people at all.

"There’s going to be lots of lessons we need to learn, there’s going to be ups and downs and there’s going to be games where there’s going to be more negatives than positives. I thought this was one of the games.

"I felt this was the first time throughout pre-season and the first couple of games where we’ve had a disappointment and it’s now important to see how we handle it in training this week in the build-up to the Huddersfield game.

"The talk in the changing room is good, the guys are fully focused on having a real good week in training and building for the game, hopefully rewarding our loyal fans with a win.”

Lingard was pleased with some aspects of the performance.

He added: “The start was good, the way we stuck to the game plan in the first 15, 20 minutes.

"The effort’s there, we can’t knock the effort whatsoever, they are working really hard. It’s just about managing the smartness as well as us working hard.

"Working hard will get you a long way, but it won’t get you over the line. We need to make sure we are working smart and managing the situations that we can control and we need to cut out some of these silly errors that’s within our control.

"Sometimes you make these errors because players are trying too hard at times and trying to force a pass that might not be there, trying to force an offload when there’s three defenders in the tackle and it’s a slow ruck or we go wide too quick.”

Lingard revealed that at the start of the week the Tigers had 12 players on the treatment table and lost back rower Charbel Tasipale to injury and illness late in the build-up.

But fellow back rowers Alex Mellor and Luis Johnson made quicker than expected recoveries and were able to take their place in the squad.

Lingard explained: "Charbel had about four different ailments and he was poorly as well – we’ve had a bit of illness in the camp late in the week.

"Fortunately for us we had Alex Mellor and Luis Johnson come back probably a week or two earlier than we were expecting, which really helped us out. We had a couple of guys who had late fitness tests as well.

“We were a little bit patched up and a little bit bumped and bruised, but you are going to get that, it’s a contact sport.

"Sometimes you hope it’s a little bit later on in the season rather than in round three, but it’s something we’re going to have to cope with.

"Hopefully we will get some bodies back in the next two or three weeks.”