Castleford Tigers dealt fresh injury blow on eve of Super League season

Castleford Tigers have lost another outside back on the eve of the new Super League season – with Louis Senior out for an undisclosed period with an ankle injury.

Senior came off during Castleford’s pre-season friendly defeat at St Helens last month, with no timescale initially set for his return to competitive action.

But Senior was a notable absentee from the Tigers squad that was named to face Doncaster this weekend – and head coach Ryan Carr has confirmed he is set to be sidelined for a prolonged period.

Carr admitted the loss of Senior – whose brother Louis departed for Leigh Leopards in the off-season – was a blow given how he had impressed in pre-season training before being injured.

He told a pre-match media conference on Friday: “It’s really disappointing because he sort of finished last year with a quad injury that kept him out for the majority of pre-season and he’s worked really hard to get himself back and in good nick.

“I was really impressed with how he was progressing along and then he got just one of those innocuous tackles that got his leg stuck in an unfortunate position. So yeah, he’s going to be out for a bit of time.”

Senior joins both Zac Cini and Semi Valemei as players set to miss Castleford’s first Super League game against Wigan Warriors next weekend – and Carr was reluctant to put a timeframe on the return of either overseas player with a long and arduous season ahead, starting on Saturday.

He said: “We’re just going day by day and yeah, they’ll be back as quick as possible.

“But the thing that we need to be conscious of is when they do come back, they stay back and they don’t re-injure themselves. That’s really crucial because we haven’t even started the season yet.”