Castleford performance 'appalling' fumes boss Daryl Powell
Last Updated: 13/03/15 3:51pm
Castleford coach Daryl Powell was furious with his players following their 22-0 Super League thrashing by Huddersfield.
The Tigers produced a calamitous display at the John Smith’s Stadium just seven days after their impressive 42-14 triumph over Wigan.
"I can't explain to you how disappointed I am. It was ridiculous that the team has come up with that effort. It was appalling," Powell said.
"To be that bad for the whole game I find really difficult to take. There are some players - and I won't name them - who I've never seen play as badly. Hopefully I will never have to live through that again.
"There was that much wrong with the performance, I'd need a long sheet of paper to describe it. It was the worst game of rugby league I've seen in a long time and the worst performance since I've been at Castleford.
"Spirit was missing and the boys have got to cop a whack on the chin for that. The attitude and application just wasn't there from start to finish. We never got out of first gear and obviously we've got to find the reasons for that.
"It's not been a great start to the season. I thought we'd turned the corner last week but today we showed we've still got some issues."
Powell's sentiments were echoed by full-back Luke Dorn, who captained the side in the absence of the injured Michael Shenton.
'Horrendous'
"We were soft in every department. I felt sorry for everyone who had to watch it. We were horrendous," he said.
Huddersfield were little better in an error-strewn first half, but former Castleford man Jamie Ellis made up for a couple of blunders with a solo try just before the break.
They went on to cruise to a second successive victory that lifts them to fifth in the table and coach Paul Anderson said: "We've seen tonight what we're capable of.
"I thought collectively we worked hard for each other. Hard work makes you lucky and that was a win for effort.
"Imagine how good we could be if we kept hold of the ball. We gifted 50 per cent of our ball away in the first half through poor skill.
"Jamie Ellis dropped a couple of balls but I was really pleased with how he responded."