Tigers roar into the Challenge Cup semi-final

Castleford Tigers defeat Salford Red Devils in the Challenge Cup to reach the semi finals where they will face the Warrington Wolves.

Prost spoke to Castleford head coach, soon to be the Warrington coach, Daryl Powell about his sides victory. “We had to work exceptionally hard”.

Salford took the game to the Tigers and it proved to be a tough test for the team from West Yorkshire to withhold Salford’s attacks, the task was made even harder when they were reduced to eleven men with Gareth O’Brien and Liam Watts both sent to the sin-bin.

“They were chasing the game at that period where we went down to eleven men. You have to scramble pretty much every play because we’ve got a team against us who were chasing the game, so that made it really hard”.

When asked about how hard his key players had to work to get the win, Powell said, “Your pivotal players, Paul McShane, and Niall Evalds were really solid today. They worked exceptionally hard”.

“Trueman was great today, on both sides of the ball because he had Pauli Pauli coming at him and I thought he handled him exceptionally well”.

It was a drop goal that secured the win for Cas after the game went to golden point following a last minute try from Salford’s Lee Mossop. It was drop goal specialist, Gareth O’Brien who came back from the sin-bin to send the Tigers through to the semi-final.

“Well I think it took us nine attempts against Hull KR and we were a little bit sharper than that today. Look you can see how many games this year have been decided by drop goals already, or lack of in the Hull Warrington game”.

“They’re all tight games and it’s going to be needed but it takes bravery, it takes courage to stand there and go yeah I’m your man give me the ball”.

It was a tremendous win for Castleford and another test of the their resolve to win in extra point for the second round running, after Salford pegged them back to end the regular 80 minutes, 18-18.

It’s Warrington in the semi-final for Powell’s men, an interesting tie with the coach from Yorkshire coming up against his future employees.

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