Catalans coach offers damning ‘not up to it’ assessment of squad after latest heavy loss
Interim Catalans Dragons head coach Joel Tomkins.
Catalans Dragons coach Joel Tomkins has offered a damning assessment of his squad following their latest heavy defeat: insisting many of them are ‘not up to it’.
The Dragons were hammered at Wakefield Trinity on Saturday evening, losing 44-6 in West Yorkshire to remain well off the Super League play-off pace.
It is another disappointing loss under Tomkins, who has won just once since taking charge of the Dragons following Steve McNamara’s exit.
But he did not pull any punches after the game, insisting that there are serious questions to be asked of his players.
“Realistically, we’ve got to improve massively to be in contention,” he said. “We’ve got some players out there who are not up to it at the minute.
“That’s not just the young French boys, that’s some of our overseas boys and our English imports as well.
“We’ve got boys who are just not doing it week in, week out, and that’s why we’re turning out scorelines like that.”
When asked for his assessment of his side’s performance, Tomkins did not hold back, admitting his time got what they deserved from a disappointing defeat.
He said: “I thought Wakefield just beat us to the punch in the first half, and they just seemed to have more energy. They scrapped, they won the 50/50s.
“That’s what we did last week, and that’s why we got a result of 32-0 last week.
“We turned up tonight as if it’s just going to happen for us. We started the game really poorly, and then we got the result we deserved.”
The result leaves Catalans six points off the pace in the race to make the play-offs with ten rounds to go. They face Warrington Wolves at home next week in a contest that increasingly looks must-win for their top six hopes in 2025.
