Joel Tomkins’ first words as interim Catalans Dragons boss including huge Wigan Warriors compliment
Joel Tomkins pictured in 2021 during his time as a Catalans Dragons player
Stand-in boss Joel Tomkins took charge of Catalans Dragons for the first time as they were beaten 48-0 by Wigan Warriors in Perpignan on Saturday evening.
The 38-year-old was thrust into an interim head coach role earlier this week when the Dragons dismissed Steve McNamara after almost eight years at the helm.
Speaking to Sky Sports following the defeat to Wigan, here’s everything Tomkins had to say…
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On a baptism of fire…
It certainly was.
We were playing against the best team in the competition there. I know Hull KR are doing a great job this year, but for me, Wigan are still the best team in the competition.
They came fully loaded, I think they only had Abbas Miski missing today out of their (first-choice) 17, and we’re doing it tough.
We had 11 French players in the team, which is a positive, but we’re probably missing eight out of our top 17.
No doubt about it, we’re doing it tough. There were some glimpses in there in the first half, I thought we got into an arm wrestle, and hopefully we can start laying a foundation to move forward this season.
We’ll get over this one however we can and move on to next week. We need to start building a foundation for the rest of the season.
On this week’s disruption…
It was a bit of a shock to everybody on Tuesday morning (when McNamara was relieved of his duties).
We had a session Tuesday and then a session on Thursday to try and fix a few things up.
The boys have responded this week. They’ve come in, they’ve trained, prepared well and we just came up against a team there on the top of their game.
It’s a well-oiled machine Wigan at the minute, and we weren’t good enough to stop it when it got rolling.
On his friendship with Wigan boss Matt Peet…
I’m very close to Matty. What he’s done with his team over the last three of four years is amazing.
He’s definitely someone who I’ll look to, to have some conversations with moving forward.
Congratulations to him today, they were by far the better team and they were too good for us.
On the plan between now and hosting Hull FC next Saturday…
Hopefully we can get a couple of bodies back next week.
We won’t get too many, but two or three boys might come back.
They’re 50/50, it’s looking more like (they’ll return for) Hull KR after the Challenge Cup final. We’ll be looking a bit more healthy with our squad (by then)
The plan for next week is to get back together on Monday and re-group, look at what we can improve on in the game.
We’ll look at some small areas we think we did well in and then try to maximise those next week.
We’ve got 15 games left now this season. If we improve every week, we can be around the play-off spots by the end of the year hopefully.
We’ll concentrate on next week for now and then build throughout the year.
