Tigers enjoy home comforts

Castleford Tigers battled to a 22-16 victory over Crusaders at the Jungle, their first home win of the engage Super League season.

Tries from Kirk Dixon, Ryan McGoldrick and Joe Westerman put the Tigers in a commanding position at the break.

Westerman added a penalty after the break but Crusaders tries from Jason Chan and Weller Hauraki sandwiched a Jordan Thompson score and made for a nervy finish.

New Zealander Rangi Chase had a kick charged down and had second rower Hauraki been a three-quarter he might have had the pace to cross for the opener.

A try went begging in the 12th minute when Brent Sherwin had the ball knocked out his grasp by Elliot Kear.

Castleford forged ahead with 17 minutes gone when Dixon dived for the line in the far corner.

The Tigers centre charged onto a great ball from Chase, who drifted from right to left showing two dummies before finding the eventual try-scorer.

Westerman nailed a very tricky conversion and shortly after McGoldrick spilled as he looked to go low and hard for the line.

Cantered

Mellars cantered 50 metres to the line for the Crusaders' first of the night.

The score came in the 25th minute when former Tigers man Peter Lupton broke from a scrum and sent Mellars through some weak tackling, the worst coming from McGoldrick.

Witt squared things up when he slotted the resulting conversion.

McGoldrick atoned for his error just shy of the half-hour mark when joining the line late in the day.

Sherwin and Chase were orchestrating everything and when the latter hit him with a well-timed pass there was no stopping him as he tumbled over.

Westerman put the goal wide but just three minutes before the break he added a try of his own.

Mitchell Sargent was heavily involved in moving it across to the right and the young back-row forward finished well but sent the conversion wide.

Crusaders started the second half well and when Shaun Ainscough knocked-on under the high ball the Crusaders had a good chance to attack.

The ball went right and Hauraki looked as though he had gone in but Rocky Trimarchi's pass was deemed forward.

The first real opportunity of the second half came when Chase took the ball at speed and got the line moving.

Dropped

The ball was spun wide through the hands of the backs and Shenton dropped the ball at the vital moment after Sherwin had picked him out with a pass.

But it was Crusaders, much improved after the break, who scored in the 58th minute and it was again the result of some soft defending.

Tony Martin was the dummy runner but it was Chan, slipping past tackles from Chase and Liam Higgins, who finished the move.

Westerman then sent over a penalty before Thompson's 73rd minute score looked to have sealed the win.

Chase, again at his best, carried well and instead of throwing a pass wide he opted to kick and Thompson was on hand to dot down.

But Hauraki grabbed a late try and a goal from the boot of Witt made for an exciting finale as the Tigers stood firm.