Super League: Castleford Tigers 14-8 Leeds Rhinos - Bureta Faraimo's double gives home side first win

Bureta Faramio (third left) has scored four tries this season

Coachless Castleford Tigers battled to a first Super League win of the season in a tight game against Leeds Rhinos.

The hosts took the lead when Bureta Faraimo crossed before Rhyse Martin converted Richie Myler's try to give the Rhinos an 8-6 half-time advantage.

Faraimo went over for a second time to put the Tigers back in front and Gareth Widdop's penalty extended their lead.

Derrell Olpherts had a great chance to score for Leeds in the corner but dropped the pass and Cas held on.

The hooter was met by joyous scenes at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle as the Tigers celebrated a first victory under interim coach Andy Last, who again re-iterated his desire to take the job on full-time after the game.

It had been a chastening opening to the year for Cas who parted ways with head coach Lee Radford after three successive defeats at the start of the campaign and slumped to a 36-6 loss at Huddersfield last week.

To compound matters, the Tigers announced that Australian utility-back Jake Mamo had retired on Wednesday because of a recurring back injury.

Leeds, who confirmed after the game that hooker Kruise Leeming has been given permission to leave, lacked cohesion in attack all night and, for the second week running, they went an entire half without scoring a point.

Last week they ran in 26 unanswered points in the second half after being tied 0-0 at half-time against struggling Wakefield but this time their defence could not get them over the line.

Faraimo should have put the home side two tries to the good but knocked on in almost the exact same location that he had scored in and former Tigers team-mate Olpherts went on to fumble in.

The USA international made amends with what proved to be the match-winning score when he went over in the corner after some slick Tigers passing from a scrum.

The Tigers now host in-form Warrington, led by former Cas coach Daryl Powell, next Friday, while the Rhinos host Catalans next Saturday.

Castleford interim coach Andy Last told BBC Radio Leeds:

"I'm feeling emotionally drained and tired. I'm just so pleased for the group of players, they've faced a fair bit of adversity.

"The players waited for me to come back into the dressing room after and I think they nearly took the roof off with how they sang the victory song.

"We spoke about the importance of how we defended this week and being connected. We didn't allow them to have too big a period of momentum and we forced some errors. It was a performance built on the basics.

"I think we needed a win like this where you come out on top after grinding it out."

Leeds Rhinos coach Rohan Smith told BBC Radio Leeds:

"It was a good, hard game of footy and we failed to get into it in the second half.

"We made some fundamental errors that didn't allow us to get into any rhythm.

(On Kruise Leeming) "He asked to be released and he has been given the opportunity to seek other options. You'd have to ask Kruise about the reasoning behind it, I found out earlier this week. I'll just coach the players who are here. It hasn't been discussed as a group."

Castleford: Eden; Faraimo, Broadbent, Fonua, Qareqare; Widdop, Miller; Mustapha, McShane, Massey, Milner, Mellor, Westerman.

Interchanges: Edwards, Smith, Matagi, Watts.

Leeds: Myler; Olpherts, MacDonald, Newman, Fusitua; Austin, Sezer; Holroyd, O'Connor, Tetevano, McDonnell, Martin, Smith.

Interchanges: Bentley, Sangare, Lisone, Roberts; Johnson.