If there were an award for the best signing in Super League this season then the Castleford winger Denny Solomona must be near the top of the list.
The New Zealander hardly set the world alight during his first year in England, scoring just eight tries in 20 Super League appearances for London Broncos – so more than a few eyebrows were raised when the Castleford coach, Daryl Powell, opted to sign him for 2015. But Powell has a track record of polishing rough diamonds and turning them into household names, and judging by Solomona’s recent record, he is another to add to his growing list.
In his last five games Solomona has scored 11 tries, adding to the two he claimed at the start of the season before a spell out of the team, to surpass his total from last year, including a hat-trick here as Castleford further emphasised their top-four credentials with a comfortable win against Widnes Vikings. “He certainly scores a try or two – and his finishing is just incredible,” Powell said of Solomona.
The victory kept Castleford level on points with Huddersfield Giants in fourth place, but they are also six points clear of the bottom four with three games left before Super League splits later this month. In that sense it is mission accomplished for Powell’s men – but their ambitions are set much higher than merely finishing in the top eight.
“It’s another win,” Powell said, “and looking at the league table we’ve one win less than [second-placed] St Helens which is hugely impressive. We’re in a good position with three games to go.”
And while Castleford’s dream of the top four is very much still alive, Widnes’ nightmare of finishing in the bottom four is becoming more and more of a reality. They still have enough games to claw back the three-point deficit they trail eighth-placed Hull FC by, but their coach Denis Betts was left in no doubt about the scale of the task facing them after this defeat.
“I saw this game as the one that decided where we’d finish to be honest,” said Betts. “It’s going to be tough for us now; we need to win all three of our remaining games to even give ourselves a chance. We’ve still got to go to Wigan away so it makes it a bit of an uphill struggle.”
By the time Jack Owens had scored with Widnes’ first meaningful attack after half an hour, the Vikings were already 18-0 down and facing a huge task. Two of Castleford’s opening three tries came from the acrobatic Solomona, with the centre Jake Webster getting the other – but he was sent to the sin-bin for dissent shortly after Owens’ try.
That man advantage paid dividends when Chris Clarkson reduced the gap further for Widnes, but Matt Cook’s try for the home side on half-time proved pivotal. The visitors never recovered from that, and after Justin Carney scored for the Tigers, the result was sealed with well over half an hour left. Late tries from Tom Gilmore and Macgraff Leuluai acted as mere consolation before Solomona rounded off the scoring.
Castleford Dorn; Solomona, Webster, Shenton, Carney; Finn, Gale; Lynch, Milner, Millington, Holmes, McMeeken, Massey. Interchange Roberts, Cook, Moors, Springer.
Tries Solomona 3, Webster, Cook, Carney. Goals Gale 5. Sin-bin Webster 27.
Widnes Hanbury; Flynn, Dean, Craven, Owens; Gilmore, Mellor; Manuokafoa, Heremaia, Gerrard, Clarkson, Galea, Cahill. Interchange O’Carroll, Leuluai, Dudson, Isa. Tries Owens, Clarkson, Gilmore, Leuluai. Goals Owens 2.
Referee J Cobb Attendance 7,002
