Ryan McGoldrick has insisted there were enough positives to take from Castleford's opening defeat to give them encouragement for their return to Super League.
The promoted Tigers, widely tipped for the wooden spoon, let slip a 12-2 half-time lead against Catalans Dragons to go down 21-14 in front a 7,000 crowd at the Jungle.
Australian three-quarter McGoldrick, one of six survivors from Castleford's relegated side in 2006, said his side had enough chances to win but paid the price of a lack of composure.
"We're obviously pretty disappointed with the result," he said. "We put ourselves in a position to win it but we came up with some silly errors.
"Every time we got down their end, we looked like we were going to score but pushed it instead of being patient. We got a bit trigger happy with the ball
"We were chasing the game and that led to us making more mistakes and getting in a bigger hole.
"But there is a lot of talent in the side. We showed that in the tries we did score. It is just knowing when to try it and when to hold onto the ball. We've got to learn to be a bit more patient."
Castleford took their chances in the first half to establish a 10-point lead courtesy of tries from threequarters Stuart Donlan and Michael Shenton but their defensive heroics took their toll after the break.
The Dragons also struggled to maintain their composure in the absence of Stacey Jones but they found their scoring touch in the second half and secured their first away Super League win for 10 months thanks to tries from Gregory Mounis, Jason Croker and Thomas Bosc, who also kicked four goals and a drop goal.
The French side scored the winning try while down to 12 men through the sin-binning of prop David Ferriol, who was also placed on report for a high tackle on Anthony Thackeray.
Castleford's disappointment was compounded by the loss of Donlan with a knee injury in the last tackle of the match.
"He's probably out for a month with medial ligament damage," said coach Terry Matterson, who had just 20 players available for the opening match.
"That's probably a position we didn't need to lose anyone but that's how it's running at the moment."
Castleford's next opponents are Wigan, who got their season off to a terrific start with a 47-28 win at Harlequins.
Trailing 28-16 early in the second half, the Warriors ran in 31 unanswered points, including a second try for hooker Michael McIlorum.
"We kept our determination and kept things simple and I think they ran out of petrol," said Wigan coach Brian Noble.
The consolation for Harlequins was a crowd of 8,041, their biggest for 10 years.
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