George Lawler delighted to be back in contention at Castleford Tigers

​Lawler had been unable to play since suffering a seizure in the middle of the night back in April.

It left him with a small bleed on the brain and his sporting future uncertain as he began the road to recovery.

That recovery has taken the next step now with the 28-year-old’s return to action to play an hour for the Tigers reserve team in their win against Bradford Bulls reserves.

After the game Lawler said: “It feels great. It’s nice to get some miles back in the legs and I’ll hopefully get picked for next week.

“It’s massively important – the more minutes now then the easier it’ll be to get the minutes back up when I’m playing first team so I really enjoyed it today and it was a good performance all-round.

"I’ve had a lot of love from the Rugby League community, especially the Cas fans. Everyone at the club has been fantastic and it was nice to get a little clap when I went off at the end.”

Lawler, who has made 50 appearances for Cas since joining in 2022, is in contention to add to that number when the Tigers return to action at St Helens on Friday night, but may need more minutes under his belt before a first team recall with the cub making sure he is 100 per cent ready to return.

Despite no game last weekend head coach Craig Lingard has been working his players ahead of the Saints game.

He explained: “The players had a bit of time off just before the Challenge Cup weekend and it’s important they have time away from the club, if you go through a full 10 month season and get them in every week it becomes a little bit monotonous. But we’ve already had that.

"We came back and had two decent defensive performances against Wigan and Hull KR, but we’re now building towards the St Helens game and we need to make sure the hard work we’ve done defensively in them two games we maintain that.

"They’re working hard, but that’s not been a question all season. Even when results haven’t been going our way it’s not through lack of effort.

"It’s been pleasing that the effort they have been putting in defensively has shown on the field.

"Hopefully we can maintain that, not only next week, but into the rest of the season as well.”

One player likely to feature at the Totally Wicked Stadium is hooker Cain Robb after some impressive recent displays that have earned the praise of his head coach along with the Tigers’ other currently fit hooker, Liam Horne.

“Horney gives us that effort and intensity. He whacks people and gives everyone a lift around them and then Cain comes on and does what he does.

"His teammates love him because of that effort and desire.

“He is getting smarter in his game, he has been sensational the past few weeks and he has been our best player.

“We wanted people to take their chance and there’s no person that has changed my opinion more than Cain has."