Saturday 13 September 2014 22:17, UK
Castleford coach Daryl Powell has issued a rallying call after his men failed in their bid to win the league leaders' shield for the first time in their 88-year history.
The Tigers knew victory against Catalan Dragons in Perpignan would see them finish top of the pile but it all proved to be too much as the French side got a 28-6 win that left Powell’s team in fourth and sent the shield to St Helens.
The Castleford coach has now challenged his squad to show how tough they are in the coming days, with the first assignment for the Tigers now a playoff meeting with Saints next weekend.
Now we have to show how tough we are as a group and we have to make sure that the bonds that we have built up over the past year work for us in the coming weeks.
He said: “Obviously we are disappointed, but we are also delighted that we have finished in the top four, it has been a tremendous effort from the players.
"Now we have to show how tough we are as a group and we have to make sure that the bonds that we have built up over the past year work for us in the coming weeks."
Powell refused to blame the conditions in Perpignan that saw the game kick-off with the temperature approaching 25 degrees.
"Catalan are obviously pretty good at home and they are a big, physical team, and they took a hell of a lot of energy out of us in the first half," he said.
"They had a number of repeat sets and we struggled to put our sets together and we failed to complete a high percentage of our sets.
"I thought at half time we looked pretty fatigued but I thought we had a real pop at them in the second half in terms of energy, but we just made too many errors and Catalan capitalised on those.
"I still thought we worked really hard throughout the game, but we just weren't good enough today.”
Catalan end the regular season with three wins in a row and next meet Leeds in an elimination playoff.
Coach Laurent Frayssinous said: "I'm very happy because we had a good performance against a top team in front of our fans in our last game at home.
“I am also happy with the defensive attitude that is what we have focussed on over the last few weeks and that is what we need to keep on building for next week."
Reflecting on his side's strong end to the year, he added: "After (defeat to) Salford, it was a tough two weeks, not just for me, but for the players, we have worked hard and gained three wins to finish our season and have started to build a winning mentality. You can see the benefit of that hard work and our attitude.
"It is awesome to see how the players are enjoying being out there, doing stuff together, and we need to keep sticking to that mentality and attitude."
