Castleford Tigers head coach Ryan Carr insists he isn’t afraid to make changes to his 17-man match-day squad this weekend, with his side sitting on an unwanted 0-2 record from their opening two games. 

Carr’s side led at various points in their opening games against Wigan Warriors and Toulouse Olympique, but came unstuck in the second-half on both occasions, conceding a combined 30 points across the two latter stages while scoring just 10 of their own in either game.

That run of form leaves Castleford bottom of the Super League table heading into round three this weekend, while also posting the second-worst points difference in the league to date.

‘We need to make sure we’re hungry to keep our jersey’

While the season is still very much in its infancy, this is far from the start Carr and the wider club would have wanted, given the dramatic overhaul of the playing squad this off-season, and the boss admits it is far below the standards he set out at the start of the campaign.

“There will be some changes, because there have to be. We weren’t happy with how we played, and some performances weren’t up to the where our level of standards are. Some people will get an opportunity off the back of that.

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“I’m a big believer in ‘you do your job, you keep your job’. It’s professional sport; there’s always someone looking to get the jersey off your back, and that’s how we need to have it. We need to make sure we’re hungry to keep our jersey every week and not just be given it, because I’m not just going to sit back as a coach and allow people to continue to do their job if they’re not playing at the standard we want.”

Castleford have, for large parts, looked vastly improved from last season, but costly self-inflicted errors and lapses in concentration have denied them the ability to make the most of their chances.

In their season opener against Wigan, Castleford conceded three tries in the space of 10 minutes either side of half-time, which was then backed up with another flurry of two tries in five minutes just after the hour mark, while Toulouse also grabbed two in 13 minutes to kill off their chances of victory in France.

These periods have cost the Tigers immensely in the opening two rounds, and have left Carr calling for more consistency from his side heading into both the long-term future and their upcoming clash with Huddersfield Giants.

“There have been long periods of time where we looked really good as a group and really resilient in our defensive line, but then when you look at the positives, there are some glaring negatives. It’s not the whole game, and there’s a lot of good, but the bad is too bad and it just can’t drop to that level.

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“We need to be more consistent for the 80 minutes and not have that glaringly bad moment within a set that turns into points.

But, this poor start does not deter the new boss’s drive to turn things around at the OneBore Stadium, insisting he knew it would always be a long-term project.

“Losing a couple of key players to long-term injuries doesn’t make anyone’s job easy, but I knew what I was in for,” said Carr. It was always going to be a process approach to what we needed to do at the club, and with so many changes in such a short period of time, I was never naive enough to think it would be quick and easy; but we can’t sit back and think that losing is okay.

“It’s not about who you lose to or the narrative around ‘that’s a winnable game’, they’re all winnable. You have to want to win every game you play, and I’m not a believer in targeting games. I thought the Wigan game and the Toulouse game were there to be won.

“It’s not a case of who we’re playing dictates what we should and shouldn’t be winning; every team can beat everyone in this competition. For us, we’re focusing hard on ourselves this week and making sure our attitude is right.”

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