Weakened Castleford RUFC side suffers heaviest defeat of season

The 39-19 loss was on the cards with the lions' share of Castleford’s first XV playing staff unavailable.

They made a disappointing start with centre Mark Poppleton's charged down touch-finder falling straight into the hands of full-back Tom Ambler, who sprinted from halfway to score under the posts. Steven Shaw added the conversion.

Castleford replied quickly when scrum-half Ian Mattison found touch 10 metres out with his relieving kick. From the resulting line-out prop forward Millar McCoy gathered and broke clear before dummying over for his first try of the season, bringing the visitors to within two points.

Castleford then took the lead with a Mattison penalty from 40 metres out.

But the rest of the half was dominated by a four-try, Thorne blitz, with flanker Ros Haley grabbing a hat-trick and centre Scott Berry adding the other, posting a 29-11 interval lead.

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The second half was evenly contested with Thorne adding a further 10 points with a Sean Roberts try and a Shaw penalty.

Castleford did have the final say when centre Charlie Barker cut through the home defensive line with a scything, angled run before giving Mattison a clear run for the try in the corner.

This was definitely one for Cas to put behind them as they travel to Leeds Medics this Saturday with hopefully a much-strengthened side.