Castleford confirm dual-registration partnership with Championship club

Drew Darbyshire
Mend A Hose Jungle Castleford

Super League club Castleford have agreed a dual-registration partnership with Championship side Halifax for the 2023 campaign.

The Tigers also linked up with League 1 side Midlands Hurricanes back in December.

Players who find themselves outside of Lee Radford’s matchday squad will be able to get game time on the field with Midlands and now Halifax.

It will also provide Castleford squad members who are recovering from injury the chance to get back up to full fitness.

Tigers head of rugby and development Danny Wilson said: “It’s a really exciting time for us at the club with some of the partners we’ve got.

“It’s an agreement that works for us two-fold. We have a focus on building our player pathway. It’s great to have the partnership with Midlands and now the Panthers. ”

“Also, with the Reserves it allows players coming into our pathway with that bandwidth of playing opportunities.

“We’ve got a healthy and big squad with some great Super League players. But unfortunately at this time of year, some of them won’t make it into Lee’s squad so partnering with Halifax allows those top-end players the opportunity to gain valuable minutes at a top club like Halifax.

“It gives players who have just graduated our academy, the challenge of Reserve grade, in League 1 with Midlands, or in the Championship with Halifax. Our pathway is now is really comprehensive.”

Halifax delighted to team up with Castleford

Panthers director of rugby Richard Durgan said: “We’d like to thank Huddersfield for the last couple of years. But we just thought it was a more natural fit with Castleford.

“We seem to have a similar feeling and similar values around dual-registration. There’s a few natural connections there with Scott Murrell on the staff there. We look forward to working with them.

“We’ve had some very productive meetings already in the short term. Hopefully it will be exciting for the season to come and hopefully it can be of use to us.

“Dual-registration for Championship clubs is obviously more of an insurance policy as we’d like to pull in some quality as and when we need it. We felt that Castleford bought into the idea of giving us some quality players to compliment our squad. We look forward to a successful partnership moving forward.”

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