Wigan Warriors fans wait to hear new date for Castleford fixture

Today’s fixture was postponed due to adverse weather - a victim of the ‘mini Beast from the East’ - after a 10am pitch inspection.

Castleford Tigers safety officer Ian Crawford said: “The sheer volume of rainfall we had before the snow and sub zero temparatures overnight have left us with a frozen pitch and frozen terraces.

“We would never want to put anyone in danger while attending a match at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle so postponing this match is unfortunately our only option.”

Fans were urged to keep hold of their existing tickets.

It leaves club officials with the awkward challenge of squeezing a rearranged game into their fixture lists.

Wigan play every weekend between now and mid-June, making a midweek fixture a possibility.

A more likely option may be the weekend of June 23, which has been left blank in the fixture lists to accommodate England’s international against New Zealand in Denver, USA.

Under the RFL rules, a club with four or more players missing for representative duty can ask for a fixture to be postponed.

It isn’t unfeasible that Wigan or Castleford may have four players in Wayne Bennett’s squad, but if that was the case, the fixture could still go ahead - it is up to clubs to apply to the RFL board for a postponement.

Wigan’s game against Castleford was the second match of the weekend to be hit by the weather.

Saturday evening’s game between Wakefield and Widnes was abandoned after 26 minutes because of a snow-storm, having only gone ahead after an earlier pitch inspection.

On the plus side for Shaun Wane and his staff, yesterday’s postponement means they will get a full week to prepare for Friday’s home match against Huddersfield.

Had they faced Castleford yesterday, they would have only had a short-turnaround - and possibly only one training session - before the visit of the Giants.

But now, with no recovery, Wane will have the option of a standard build-up - two full training days, a rest day, and then a captain’s run.

Wigan’s RL History twitter feed reported it was the club’s first match postponed because of the weather in-season since January 1992. A match at Bradford the following year was started but abandoned early on because of fog.