Castleford Tigers moved into fourth place and forced London Broncos back onto the bottom of the table with a 42-10 win at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle.
MATCH DETAILS
Ex-London Broncos Mike McMeeken and Tuoyo Edogo shone as Castleford took apart a seemingly weary London team, whose impressive run of wins looked to have caught up with them at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle. It was the latter who opened the scoring twelve minutes in before McMeeken backed up with a try a quarter of an hour later to put Castleford 8-0 up.
London hit back with an interception try from Kieron Dixon but it wasn’t long before Castleford re-asserted their dominance and McMeeken crossed just before the half time break. Half-time seemed to do no favours for the Broncos and Castleford came out firing, scoring three quickfire tries to push their lead out to 30-4.
London continued to struggle to stop a rampant Castleford attack, conceding additional tries from James Clare and Chris Clarkson before a fifteen minute period of solid defence which Rhys Williams backed up with a try just six minutes from time to cut Castleford’s winning margin to 32-points at the full time hooter.
The win came at a vital time for the Tigers, who will now look to hold their playoff spot over the remaining rounds. On the other hand, a win for Leeds over the Catalans Dragons meant that Broncos’ loss relegated them to the bottom of the table once more.
FOUR POINTERS
Broncos back at the bottom
London hit the bottom of the super league table again after Leeds’ win against Catalans came at the same time as this sizeable 32-point loss to Castleford. Considering four of their next five fixtures are against top four teams, it looks as though London may be staying there for the foreseeable future.
Classy Cas look to be back again
After a few weeks of underwhelming performances, Castleford bounced back and played the free-flowing, attacking rugby we are used to seeing from them nowadays. The nature of the victory stands them in good stead for the run in to the playoffs as they now look to be back in form and clicking well.
Ex-Londoners put their home team to the sword
Tuoyo Egodo and Mike McMeeken – both London Broncos academy products – scored a brace each against their home town club, making a large part of the difference in the scores between the two sides. Despite being on the wrong end of them, such performances can only be positive for the Broncos’ showing the quality players they produce.
Daryl Powell enjoyed the complete Cas performance
In his post match interview, Powell expressed his pleasure with the complete nature of the Castleford performance suggesting they were excelling on both sides of the ball. Powell commented: “I thought we suffocated them defensively and were sharper with the ball.”
THE RESULT
Castleford Tigers 42
Tries: Egodo (2), McMeeken (2), Rankin, Trueman, Clare, Clarkson
Goals: Rankin (5)
Drop Goals:ย n/a
London Broncos 10
Tries: Dixon, Williams
Goals: Dixon
Drop Goals: n/a
SQUADS
Castleford Tigers: Rankin; Clare, Minikin, Blair, Egodo; Trueman, Ashton; Watts, Milner, Smith, Sene-Lefao, McMeeken, Massey.
Interchanges: McShane, Millington, Cook, Clarkson.
London Broncos: Walker; Dixon, Morgan, Kear, Williams; Abdull, Smith; Battye, Cunningham, Krasniqi, Pitts, Gee, Yates.
Interchanges: Lovell, Fozard, Richards, Butler.
