Catalans a different team away from home claims Wane

Wigan coach Shaun Wane would be disappointed about Catalans’ away form, if he was Dragaons coach.

The Warriors travel to Perpignan to face Catalans this weekend, and Wane is expecting an entirely different type of Dragons team to the one which travels away from home.

“They’re a different team, which for me would be a disappointment as a coach, the way they don’t turn up away from home,” he said.

“They’re a different challenge at home. They have a good crowd with a good atmosphere, it puts a lot of pressure on the referee, and it’s a tough place to win at.

“We’ve won there before. We won there last year, and we know what we need to do.

“We just need to make sure that we attack our way, and keep defending the way we’ve defended.”

Wane also feels that the circumstances of the game are often manipulated in France to favour the home team, whether deliberately or not.

“They have long water breaks and they take their time with the substitutions, but that’s what you get in France,” he said.

“That’s the way it is, and it’s always been that way since we’ve been there in 2010. No question about that.

“I think 2012 we went there and had the longest game you’ve ever known. It was something like well over 90 minutes.

“So that’s the way it is. We’ve been there and had those conditions and still won games, so there’s no excuses from me.

“We know what to expect. They’re tough and athletic. They rested some players last week because they’re aiming to win this game.

“But if we have a good attitude and turn up to play then we’ll challenge them.”

Last week, Wigan were knocked out of the Challenge Cup by Hull KR, who pulled off something of a shock result at the Leigh Sports Village.

Wane feels that those observers who have been writing off his team’s chances of success this season as a result of that game are being somewhat premature.

“Previous to that, everyone had been saying how good we had been going,” he said.

“One game doesn’t make us a poor team. We need to remember what we’re good at.

“In the previous six games, I think, on average, we were scoring 38 points a game on average and only having eight scored against us.

“So that’s not a poor team.

“The way we were attacking was what we were best at, but we didn’t turn up in that game.”

Despite not being too downhearted by the defeat, Wane admits that the disappearance of the chance to win all three trophies this year has been painful.

“It is really disappointing. We set off aiming for three, and now we’ve only got two,” he said.

“But life goes on. We just need to build into a performance this week.

“I was disappointed with quite a few things, but I thought we defended well.

“They threw a lot at us, and never looked like scoring really.

“A couple of their tries came off our errors. We made 17 errors with the ball, so you don’t deserve to win Cup games playing like that.”