Daryl Powell: Castleford Tigers boss unwavering in commitment before Warrington semi-final

Daryl Powell has already taken Castleford to one Challenge Cup final, in 2014, when they lost to Leeds

Castleford coach Daryl Powell admits his "eyes rolled to the top of my head" when the Challenge Cup draw paired his current club with Warrington - the team he moves to next season - in Saturday's semi-final.

Powell will take the reigns at the Wire for the 2022 campaign. But he's determined to leave the Tigers on a Wembley high, even if that means ruining his next club's dreams.

"I predicted it really, I felt that would happen," he laughed. "It presents its own challenges. But I'm the coach of Castleford Tigers, my commitment is 100% to this club, and that's how it will stay for the remainder of this season."

Leading Castleford to Challenge Cup glory would cap a memorable eight years at his hometown club.

When he left Featherstone to take over at the Jungle in 2013, he moved to a club that was in disarray.

The years since then have been eye-catching and often breathtaking, with near-misses in the 2014 Challenge Cup final and 2017 Super League Grand Final.

He's determined now to go one step further, and capture some elusive major silverware before he leaves.

"It's a great opportunity for us, the Challenge Cup is so special isn't it? We've been hearing stories all week from players about what this means to them," he told BBC Sport.

"It's my club - I supported the club when I was a teenager. That was crucial for me. It's the only job I wanted at the time. I'd come back from rugby union and got back into rugby league with Featherstone and then got the opportunity to come to Castleford.

"It was a club that needed the culture turning around straight away and I felt we did that pretty quickly with the help of the senior players who were here at that time. In 2014, we had a pretty strong season and got to the Challenge Cup final.

"We had a pretty special year in 2017 and we've generally been in and around the play-off spots consistently while I've been here. The 2017 season was outstanding, but we didn't manage to win the Super League trophy, which was hugely disappointing.

"We have an opportunity here now. We're 80 minutes away from a Challenge Cup final, we're playing against a really talented team in Warrington, but we've just got to play well."

Cas 'a special job'

Daryl Powell will leave his boyhood team this autumn to join Warrington - Saturday's opponents

It surprised many when Powell announced he would leave Castleford at the end of this season, and was quickly announced as the next Warrington coach for 2022 when current incumbent Steve Price departs.

The 55-year-old insists that hasn't caused any problems with his current employers.

"This is a great club, with great people," he said. "The fanbase loves the club and the team. It was a special job for me, it's still a special job for me and I want to finish it massively positively.

"It's challenging at the moment in different ways, but we've got an opportunity to make these eight years super special.

"I've had an unbelievable time here. It's been absolute class and I will love this club to the day I die. But there comes a time when there's a new challenge. I told Castleford I needed a new challenge and they were fine.

"Then it became about the marketplace and a job for next season. Warrington is a class club, the people that run it are outstanding. I look forward to that challenge when I get there, for the moment it's Castleford where I'm at."

• Powell and Price hunt cup farewell glory

Powell's first job this week was to lift his players after a 60-6 humbling home defeat by Leeds last weekend - far from the ideal preparation for a cup semi-final.

However, the usual round of inquests and analysis of that game was quickly put to one side in order to get his side in the right frame of mind for the Warrington tie.

"There's no point in feeling depressed until Wednesday. I felt we needed to get up on the Monday and get ready for the challenge," he said.

"I think that's really important, and I made that decision before the game. Whatever happened, we move straight on to Warrington."

"You've got to grab hold of what the town stands for"

John Joyner and his Castleford teammates last won the Challenge Cup for the town in 1986

There is also an expectation, a belief that if Cas can win the semi-final, they can also do it in the style that they have become renowned for under Powell's stewardship - with attacking flair and an entertaining game plan.

Is that style based on his own philosophy? Or did he feel pressure to play that way given the Tigers' legacy that gave them their "Classy Cas" moniker as far back as the 1960s?

"It's a little bit of both," Powell said. "You've got to grab hold of what the town stands for, that's crucial. And the history of the way the game has been played at the club is important.

"But I think players want to express themselves, I think players want to be able to play with a smile on their faces. You want to win, that's important. But I think playing a certain way is important as well."

He added: "We've worked hard on class and steel - we haven't quite got the steel right at times. But I think we have been classy.

"Our mentality is to play. We want to be able to make people stand up off their seats when they're watching games. The game in this country needs that.

"In Australia it's different. In Sydney, it's the number one sport. Here it's a niche sport. We're trying to make people look at the game and believe in what it stands for and it has to be good on the eye as well as successful."