Hull FC vs Castleford Tigers Prediction: FC set for first home win in 11 months

Hull FC bid to strengthen their position in the Betfred Super League play-off places when they host the struggling Castleford Tigers on Friday night (kick-off 20:00 BST), with both sides benefitting from a fortnight off for the Betfred Challenge Cup final.

The Black and Whites went into the break with a thumping win away to Catalans Dragons and will look to pick up where they left off against a Tigers team with just three wins to their name all season. Here are my Hull FC vs Castleford Tigers predictions, the latest team news and Betfred's match odds.

Hull FC vs Castleford Tigers Odds

Despite a run of almost 11 months without a home victory, Hull are the obvious heavy favourites to finally pick up a win at the MKM Stadium. Betfred have them at 1/5 to get the two competition points, with Castleford out at 18/5 and it's 22/1 for the draw.

The standard two-way handicap market gives the Tigers a 13.5-point start, with Cas 10/11 in that scenario and FC at 5/6.

Team News

Hull FC will fancy this game but go into it without some key players.

Influential forward John Asiata is still out with a hamstring injury that will not be a quick fix, while the big blow this week came with confirmation of a similar injury to livewire full-back Will Pryce.

Pryce scored two stunning tries in that win in the south of France but injured his hamstring late on and will not be fit to return for the next eight to 10 weeks, a huge blow for the Black and Whites.

So boss John Cartwright will be forced into a reshuffle and the fit-again Jordan Rapana looks likely to move from centre to fill the void left by Pryce.

Will Gardiner comes into the 21-man squad in place of Pryce and that is the only change from a fortnight ago. Jordan Lane, Ligi Sao and Jed Cartwright are all still out.

Rugby League Odds

Castleford are without their full-back too - former Hull man Tex Hoy drops out along with Judah Rimbu, Hugo Salabia and Josh Hodson.

Into the squad in their place come Tom Amone, captain Sam Wood, Will Tate and Muizz Mustapha.

Handicap 3-way: Hull FC -14 @ 1/1

Hull will be considerably weakened by the absences of Asiata and Pryce but I still think they will have more than enough to win this game.

Both of our tips landed in their thumping win at Catalans, with the prolific Lewis Martin notching again, and I feel confident that we can grab a couple of successful tips again here.

Hull can go fourth with a win and I feel that will be incentive enough for a big performance in front of a vocal home crowd.

As for Castleford, May concluded with back-to-back defeats against Warrington and Leeds, but scoring 24 points away to the Wolves will have given head coach Danny McGuire reason for optimism.

This is the second meeting between these sides this season, with Hull FC recording a 10-point victory at The Jungle.

I don't expect Cas to roll over but I feel Hull right now are a far better structured team and can win this, and justify the handicap at -14.

Lewis Martin anytime tryscorer  @ 8/11

Eat, sleep, repeat. Once again we refer back to pretty much any of my Hull FC previews this season for the reasons why I back Lewis Martin each week.

I am still not interested in looking anywhere else for a scorer punt in a Hull FC game, even though his odds are coming in week by week.

He remains one of the most reliable tryscorers in the game and came up trumps for us again in the Catalans win.

Only Mikey Lewis and Jai Field have scored more Super League tries this season and this is the kind of fixture that can really bolster his tally of nine.

Find more Rugby League Betting Tips here at Betfred Insights