Super League: Castleford 21-12 Warrington - Daryl Powell's Tigers too good for Wire

Jordan Turner followed the lead of fellow new Castleford signing Niall Evalds by scoring on his debut

New Castleford signing Jordan Turner scored two tries on his debut as Daryl Powell's impressive Tigers closed the first Super League weekend of 2021 with a deserved win over Warrington.

Fellow debutant Niall Evalds and Oliver Holmes also crossed the whitewash.

But Gareth O'Brien's head injury meant two changes of kicker before 2020 Man of Steel Paul McShane stepped up for a touchline conversion and drop goal.

Warrington crossed through Toby King, Daryl Clark and Blake Austin.

Wire had the consolation of the best individual moment of the game.

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Clark's stunning score against his old club from Jason Clark's brilliant break was the try of the match before Austin's late effort narrowed the losing margin.

And Warrington's afternoon in windy Leeds was summed up by the normally reliable Stefan Ratchford and Gareth Widdop missing all three conversion attempts between them.

But it was a real first weekend triumph for 55-year-old Powell as Super League's longest-serving boss successfully embarked on his final season in charge.

Toby King's try for Warrington at Emerald Headingley emulated elder brother George's for Hull KR the previous evening

The former England and Great Britain centre announced last week that he would leave Cas at the end of the season after eight years in the job - and was immediately linked with a move to Warrington, who will also say their own farewell at the end of the year when boss Steve Price returns to Australia.

Restoring 32-year-old former Salford, Hull, St Helens, Canberra Raiders and Huddersfield man Turner to his old place on the wing for the first time in 14 years proved a masterstroke.

Turner was forced to play out of position wide on the left after Powell lost wingers Sosaia Feki and James Clare in pre-season. And O'Brien, starting in place of half-back Danny Richardson, was forced off with a head knock after 20 minutes, which will also rule him out of next Friday's derby clash with Leeds.

But Evalds filled in well at full-back, Richardson should be back next week from his wrist injury and already Castleford look to be in the sort of form that might finally bring silverware - and at the very least a few smiles - for Powell's 2014 Challenge Cup Final and 2017 Grand Final losers.

Castleford coach Daryl Powell:

(Can he keep smiling?) "It is a bit of a challenge for me because I'm pretty tense on match days. But I had a bit of dig at that, I was pretty relaxed. It's an important thing for me to do this year so I'll keep working on that."

"We got rattled a little bit by Gaz getting knocked out. He was playing great before he got hurt and it forced us into an early reshuffle. But we handled it pretty well, scored some smart tries down our left-hand side, our defence was pretty solid and it's a big win for us.

"Niall Evalds is a class player. He spent a fair bit of time in pre-season building up his combinations and you could see he's fitted into the team in the way we play. He's pretty electric and his pass selection is great."

Warrington coach Steve Price:

"It wasn't the start we were looking for. Defensively we weren't hitting our mark. We were way off, and that snowballed into a whole lot of areas of our game.

"We've got to be patient. There's been a big change within our team that we've been working on in pre-season and that wasn't displayed.

"That's frustrating and it hurts from a coaching point of view and the players are hurting also. They've every right to."

Castleford: Evalds; Olpherts, Mata'utia, Shenton, Turner; Trueman, O'Brien; Millington, McShane, Griffin, Holmes, Blair, Massey.

Interchange: Watts, Milner, O'Neill, Smith.

Warrington: Ratchford; Lineham, Wrench, King, Charnley; Austin, Widdop; Hill, Walker, Cooper, Currie, Hughes, Philbin.

Interchange: J Clark, D Clark, Mulhern, Ashton.

Referee: Chris Kendal.