It may not have been the club’s best night of the year, but Castleford Tigers supporters were given another glimpse at the future of the club with three teenagers in their team for their latest game at St Helens.
With nothing much at stake for the Tigers in the closing weeks of the season head coach Craig Lingard has taken the chance to look at prospects coming through the ranks at Wheldon Road and has been pleased to see the progress being made by some of the club’s youngsters.
Latest to make his debut was Estonia-born forward Akim Matvejev and he played alongside Fletcher Rooney, who started at full-back, and Jenson Windley, who came off the bench.
“We knew it was going to be a tough game – Saints were back pretty much to full strength and we had a lot of bodies out, with young kids in there,” said Lingard.
“Our execution of basic skills were off, but I’m proud of the three 18-year-old kids we had playing.
“The ultimate positive we can take out was that we’ve got three young kids who are doing really well in their development.
“They’ve gone out there and played together and ended up on the field at the same time, which is immensely pleasing for us as a club.”
Lingard explained: “It was only 18 months ago that Akim was playing in the community game. He has been a late starter in rugby league and the development he’s shown in such a short space of time for him to make his first team debut is unbelievable.
“Jenson Windley, who’s a half-back, jumped on in the middle at nine. He’s disappointed he got run over on the last try, but he’s got to be immensely proud of what he’s done in the last few weeks and remember where he’s come from – he’s just three weeks after his 18th birthday and he’s doing really well.
“Fletcher’s been waiting for his opportunity at full-back and got it with Tex Hoy being out. He took his try really well.
“There’s some really positive signs with these young kids, but we’ve got to make sure we learn these lessons into next year and we can develop the young kids even more with some better quality round them as well.”
All three youngsters are in contention to stay in the team for the final game of the season at Huddersfield Giants on Thursday, but Lingard is expecting to have more players to pick from after being down to the last 20 last week.
He added: “We’ll see what the bodies are like and will assess some of the injuries we’ve got.
“We’ll see whether Tex is back or not and some of the other ones who have missed out with injury. Sylvester Namo is back after suspension.
his hamstring and we’ll assess how he is.”
