Key talking points from Joel Tomkins’ unveiling as permanent Catalans Dragons boss

Joel Tomkins has now been handed the head coach role at Catalans Dragons on a permanent basis, penning a two-year deal until the end of the 2027 campaign.

Tomkins, who represented the Dragons as a player between 2020 and 2021 prior to hanging up his boots, returned to the Stade Gilbert Brutus ahead of this season and became their interim head coach back in May following Steve McNamara’s departure.

Catalans announced the 38-year-old’s permanent appointment with a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

This marks his first-ever permanent head coach role at senior level having also previously worked in the youth side of the game at Wigan Warriors.

Here are all of the key talking points from Tuesday’s press conference, and what the Dragons boss had to say.

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On his initial reaction to the appointment…

I’m very happy. Bernard (Guasch), owner is putting a lot of faith in me as a young coach coming into the club. It’s a special year for the club next year, the 20th anniversary (of being in Super League).

I played in the first game in 2006 as an 18-year-old, so to go full circle and be coaching the Dragons in the 20th anniversary is really exciting.

I’m excited for the challenge and I’m very grateful to Bernard and the board for giving me this opportunity.

I’m motivated to try and make it a successful couple of years.

On penning a two-year deal…

It’s for 2026 and 2027. When Bernard offered me the job, it was quite important to him and me that we had that time, a bit of continuity, especially when you’re looking at signing players.

It’s not very often you’ll sign players on a one-year deal, so I think to have that continuity for the next two years, we can really build with a two-year plan in mind.

On priorities…

It’s not the priority (to learn French), the priority is to win games and win trophies.

We’re the same as every club in Super League in wanting to improve our younger players and we will be putting a lot of effort into those areas over the next couple of years.

The quality of recruitment is another area we need to look at, but the main focus is to win a Grand Final, the first one for the Dragons over the next couple of years.

That’s the biggest goal for us as a club.

I will learn to speak French, I know that’s important to you guys (the locals). It’s important that most people can speak English and that the English-speaking players as well as us as coaches make an effort to speak French.

It’s one of the challenges of this club, more than any other. Every player that moves to France and lives in Perpignan has to respect the region and understand how passionate the Catalonian people are of their heritage.

It’s certainly something I’ll be putting efforts into to learn to speak French, it’ll probably be a slow process. The club pays for French and English classes. It’s a challenge for us being a multicultural and a multi-lingual club, but it’s something we need to use as one of our strengths.

On ‘big changes’ heading into 2026…

We understand where we are as a club. It’s going to be a big transitional year next year, there’ll be a lot of players leaving the club at the end of the season and a lot of new players coming into the team.

Me and Bernard understand each other and I think we’re both on the same page in terms of where we want the club to go.

On his role in recruitment for next year…

When Steve (McNamara) left the club, it was one of the first conversations that me and Bernard had.

He wanted me to be involved in the recruitment process from a coach’s point of view, regardless of whether it was going to be me or somebody else coming in as (permanent) head coach.

I’ve been heavily involved in the recruitment along with Bernard and Alex Chan (General Manager).

The recruitment model which we’ve picked moving forward is changing, we’re looking at a younger generation.

The average age of our top 20 this year was over 31. We’re looking at bringing that down to 26/27, so there’ll be quite a big change in our strategy and you’ll see that with some of the announcements we’ll make. Some (deals) are agreed and some are very close to being.

It’s quite obvious to see that there’s been a lot of guys who have come over from the NRL who are at the end of their careers and looking to play out the last couple of years in France then retire on the back of it.

We’re looking at guys who are still on the upward slope in their career, climbing the ranks and coming over with a different mentality.

On the coaching staff…

We’ve got ideas for our staff, but there’s nothing that has been agreed for next year at the minute.

Me and Bernard have spoken about some options, but there’s nothing to report as yet.

We want people who are going to come in, be passionate and have the same goals as what me, Bernard and the directors have. Hopefully we’ll get on with that in the coming months.

Bernard made the decision at the end of last season to move Thomas Bosc into a youth development role. The thinking behind that is that to develop these (young French) players, the club’s got to have someone full-time on that side of it.

I’ll be working closely with Thomas, sharing my experiences and he’s really keen to get his teeth stuck into it. For us to be a sustainable club moving forward, our youth development has to improve. This place is a rugby league hotbed.

Thomas has never left the club. He’s been here for the last 20 years. He’s our Head of Youth now, but he also does a bit of work with us in the first-team.

Ryan Sheridan is here as assistant coach still next year, and then we’ll look at bringing one or two other guys in as assistant coaches or transition coaches. Those people haven’t been finalised yet.

On Catalans needing to remain in Super League…

As far as I’m concerned, of course Catalans Dragons need to be in Super League. I think taking them out would be a massive error.

Look at what’s happened over the last 20 years… there’s been peaks and troughs, but the general consensus is that Catalans are a positive influence on the competition and long may it continue.

On the challenges brought by location…

We do have extra challenges being 1,000 miles away from any other team in the competition and travelling every other week.

It’s not a them against us approach, but it’s probably us accepting that we do things tougher than other clubs to use that as motivation for us to try and win a Super League competition.

F0r us to do that, I think it’s probably a bit more difficult than it is for any other club because of the logistical and the financial issues that we face as a club.

We’ve obviously got the travel and through the decisions that have been made over the last couple of years, the club’s been impacted massively financially in paying for all of the teams’ travel and accommodation when they come and play over here.

We are up against it, it isn’t necessarily a fair playing field, but it’s something we accept as a club if we want to be based in the South of France and play in an English competition.

It’s something we can embrace as a club and a region and use it as motivation to try and do something special and win a competition in the next couple of years.

On wanting to be the coach to deliver Catalans’ first Super League title…

That’s the dream, but I also understand there’s a hell of a lot of hard work to go in before that. I’m not going to sit here and make any bold predictions or statements on that.

I think every head coach in Super League, the goal would be to win the competition. Some goals are more realistic than others, but do I think that we can do it over the next couple of years? Genuinely, I do, if we can get things right with the recruitment side of things and what we do as staff and players.

I do think it’s possible, but I also know that there’s a huge amount of work to take us from where we’re currently at to where we want to be.

It probably starts now over these next eight weeks trying to implement some change and then it will really ramp up when we start our pre-season next year with a freshened up group and some changes within the playing group.