Millward unhappy despite win

Castleford coach Ian Millward was far from satisfied despite seeing his side record a 36-12 victory over Widnes at the PROBIZ Coliseum.

The Tigers led 10-8 at the interval thanks to scores from Brett Ferres and Daryl Clark but in a scrappy encounter, they only gave themselves some breathing room midway through the second half before running riot near the end. Tries from Jordan Thompson, three from Nick Youngquest and Clark's second of the afternoon ended Castleford's run of three successive defeats.

"It was sort of a weird game," said Millward. "Richie Owen got held up four times and we probably got held up a lot of times in the first half. Defensively we were very strong today in regard to we didn't look like conceding tries."

He added: "The try they scored was from a kick and then they scored one with a couple of seconds to go.

"Our kicking game was really poor which didn't give us a chance to get some field positions and build a bit of pressure and get some continuity.

Widnes coach Denis Betts paid tribute to Castleford but admitted the Vikings' collapse in the final 20 minutes of the match was particularly disappointing as they suffered their sixth straight defeat.

"I think that paints a picture of our year so far," he said. "Little patches of competing and working hard for each other and then just a little fracturing and breaking too easily.

"They were just willing to stick in the tough stuff a little bit longer.

"Even at about 60 minutes, if we could have got on the scoreboard earlier it might have changed our mindset a little bit.

"We didn't show any real shape or do the simple things of the game enough, which is run hard, play the ball quickly and see what happens on the back of it. Everything was just a little bit too laboured."