Ryan Carr hails ‘unreal’ effort after Castleford sink leaders Leeds

Castleford head coach Ryan Carr hailed an “unreal” effort after watching his side twice claw back a double-figure deficit to sink leaders Leeds 36-34 in a Betfred Super League classic at the OneBore Stadium.

Jason Qareqare’s late try proved just enough to seal a famous win for the Tigers, which Carr admitted would probably not have happened earlier in what has proved another frustratingly inconsistent season.

“It was unreal, it’s a big win for us,” said a delighted Carr. “We’ve been through a lot of adversity this week and during the game, and to fight through it and find a way to win the game against the best team in the competition – we just won on effort today really.

“We had a bad start, we didn’t touch the ball for 10 minutes, and it could have gone one of two ways. Earlier in the year it would probably have gone that way. This time we chose to go the tough part and work our way back into it, and that’s what pleases me the most.”

Castleford launched a stirring response to a lightning-quick start by the visitors, reducing the deficit to four points at the interval, but two Leeds tries early in the second period appeared to have quashed their revival and paved the way for another comfortable Rhinos win.

“I was disappointed with how we started (the second half),” added Carr. “Literally everything we spoke about not doing – it was a bit of a calamity out there. We could have gone, ‘it’s their day today’, but we didn’t, we fought through it and found a way.”

Brad Arthur’s first concern was for the health of hooker Danny Levi, who was taken off on a stretcher after sustaining a serious-looking injury in the first half that required over 15 minutes of on-field treatment by medics.

The Rhinos head coach confirmed that Levi had been awake and talking after been taken from the pitch, but has been taken to nearby Pinderfields Hospital due to concerns over a potential neck injury.

“He’s gone to hospital and he’ll need scans to rule out the neck – that’s the concern at the moment,” said Arthur. “We’re hoping it’s all just precautionary. He’s got most of his feeling back, he’s just a bit numb at times.

“It wasn’t nice and a few of the boys who went over to check on him had to walk away. I didn’t like the look of him when he came off the field but we just hope that he’s all right.”

Arthur accused his side of neglecting their defensive duties after a game in which they twice moved into commanding leads only to unravel and see their hopes of restoring their four-point lead at the top of the table spectacularly collapse.

“We just thought we could get it all done with our attack today, and unfortunately we can’t,” admitted Arthur. “We’ve got to do it with both sides of the ball.

“We came out (in the second half) and bombed an opportunity to go 18 points clear and just kept inviting them into the contest. With the ball we were physically very good but we didn’t want to do the other part of it, the discipline.”