Featherstone Rovers announced as Castleford Tigers' opponents for festive challenge match
Featherstone Rovers may be battling to survive into next season, but they have a game planned after being announced as Castleford Tigers’ opponents for a Christmas friendly.
The festive challenge match will see the two neighbouring clubs renew rivalries with a match set to take place at Castleford’s OneBore Stadium on Saturday, December 27.
Kick-off is 1.30pm with gates open two hours earlier and prices from £17 adults, concessions £12 and juniors £7 if bought ahead of the day.
The match will be Ryan Carr’s first in charge of the Castleford team and will likely give home supporters a first chance to see a number of the Tigers’ off season recruits for the first time.
In the past the festive games involving Cas have also been used as a launch for young players eager to show the head coach what they can do with many who have gone on to be big stars at the club making debuts in these friendlies.
It also brings in valuable finance to help with costs in the long gap between the end of one season and the beginning of the next.
Featherstone are certainly in need of raising money to help them in their big fight to survive with debts of up to £1 million being talked about and a winding up order against them next month.
Quite who they will be able to field in their team at Castleford is in doubt with a number of their first team players from last season now finding new clubs because of the uncertainty surrounding Fev.
Two more have been confirmed to have left in the last week with their former Cas prop forward Gadwin Springer and experienced centre James Glover both joining Connor Jones in moving to Championship club Doncaster.
Springer said: “I’m really happy to have everything sorted now.
“It’s been a tough few weeks, not really knowing what is happening but we got this done quickly.”
Glover took to social media recently to reveal he was owed money by Rovers with wages not being paid in the last two months.
On his move to the Dons he said: “I always said that if I wasn’t going to stay at Featherstone, there was only one other club that I’d want to get involved with.
"People that I know and that I’ve spoken to speak very highly of the club and say you get well looked after.”