Castleford Tigers head coach Craig Lingard says the club must follow through on the promises they have made to their supporters after revealing they are awaiting authorisation from the club’s board to “push the button” on transfer targets for the 2025 season.
Speaking in his weekly press conference, Lingard provided some compelling insight into the club’s current recruitment position, indicating that decisions needed to be made above him before they would be able to push through in completing deals for new recruits.
As it stands, the Tigers have only confirmed one new addition for 2025, with centre Zac Cini set to arrive from Parramatta Eels alongside others whose moves will become permanent after initially joining on loan deals.
“We’ve got a plan in place, and we just need to get that green light to execute that plan,” Lingard said. “There’s lots going on behind the scenes that we just want to get going now. We want to push that button and hopefully get some deals over the line as long as we get the authorisation to do it.”
Asked who was in control of providing that authorisation, Lingard added: “It’s above us; it’s a board decision. We’re hoping something is going to be decided, but we’re keen to get going; we’ve done a lot of work behind the scenes to get the targets in place, and it’s about time now we need to be doing it.”
He added: “I think we can’t get 12 months into a three-year plan and then put the handbrake on. We’ve got to make sure we follow through now, and that’s down to us as a club to make sure we follow through on the promises we made at the start of the 2024 season.”
“The progression we’ve made with the players we’ve got this season has been very good, players like Innes Senior who have played every game this year, Sam Wood before his injury came in and became an England international, and some of the other players; we moved Rowan Milnes on to the left-side pivot, and I thought he was significantly better as well. Some of these players we’ve got, like Liam Horne who has been a standout for us; it’s his first season of senior rugby.
“Some of the development of these players has been very good; now we’ve got to make sure we’re going into the second 12 months of the three-year plan doing what we said we were going to do.”
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