Catalans win first away match

[carlnz]

26-16 down with 15 mins to go, on comes Rinaldi to spark the Catalans to 28-26 victory!!

Great game!

 

[AlbertRosenfeld]

I listened on GMR radio.

Did anyone here see the game, and give a report on performances?

I know that Rinaldi won MOM and Beattie and Guisset were praised.

 

[JasonE]

I missed the game but was happy to see Gregory Mounis starting and Thomas Bosc getting his chance at fullback.
Does anyone know when Teddy Saddoui is back ?
I think 12 French players have been involved in SL matches so far.

 

[Padds]

Rinaldi got MoM but Michael Dobson had an excellent game.

Cats played well and once Potter gets rid of the rubbish the team will improve. For once they didnt give in when behind.

 

[DrewBeliever]

We picked Rinaldi as MoM so Sky got it right for once.
Dobson looked like he'd been playing Super League for years.
Justin Murphy had a great game, and Fullous deserved the glory of scoring the winning try based on his commitment all ready this season.
Allez Les Dragons!!

 

[DrewBeliever]

Cats played well and once Potter gets rid of the rubbish the team will improve.

And who exactly do you propose to be the rubbish at Catalan?

 

[MrCharisma]

Good stuff Dragons... a radio announcer last night was saying the Dragons could only win when Jones was on the field. I haven't seen much of Dobson... I know he is good but never had a chance at Canberra.

 

[Weasels Ripped My Flesh]

ALl we need now is for Wakefield to win and everybody's happy

 

[MrCharisma]

ALl we need now is for Wakefield to win and everybody's happy

No way

Castleford needs to avoid relegation so Wakefield needs to be sacrificed

 

[Evil Homer]

Berthezene played his first game of the season today and had a stormer.God knows why Waite wasn't picking him...

 

[Bumble]

I knew once they played Rinaldi and Berthezene together good things would happen...Great result for both my teams today!

 

[Gaz_E]

Not wanting to dampen the joy here, Catalans are awful. The problem from my point of view is that Warrington were worse then that last night. Few Warrington players come away with any credit from last night, those being Paul Wood, Michael Sullivan and Ben Westwood. All the others were hopeless.

As for Catalans, Rinaldi was the best player, Dobson looks to have a decent kicking game but no pace. Any decent team would have blown them away, given the amount of dumb errors they made.

To cap it all off, Ganson made an awful mistake in ruling a Sullivan pass forward that Warrington would have scored from.

 

[AlbertRosenfeld]

And who exactly do you propose to be the rubbish at Catalan?

As I have been saying here already, the coach needs to replace first Frayssinous and second Verges.

I would like to see some more experimentation by Potter in the centre position. Teddy Sadaoui obviously needs to be given a fair chance, and the young man also needs a lot of guidance from his coach. But Potter needs to look around in the UTC run on squad as well.

The ideal time probably should be:

Bosc,
Murphy, Hughes/Wilson, Sadaoui, Zitter/Wilson
Rinaldi,
Jones/Dobson

Mounis
Fakir, Hindmarsh
Guisset, Berthezene, Beattie.

Bench:
Rudder, Chan, Fellous, Teixido

Nothing is being achieved by having five or six foreigners and one or two French men in the backline. The whole idea of the Les Catalans franchise was to help build French rugby league. That will not not be helped by an overwhelmingly foreign backline for Les Catalans. Four foreign backs should be the maximum. Sadaoui and Zitter need to be given regular Super League experience, and the French Test scrum half, Julien Rinaldi, needs to be playing in the backs. Putting Rinaldi at five eighth, in the form of second half back --- with he and the scrum half half playing either side of the best dummy half, David Berthezene --- would be much better for Rinaldi, and for the team.

I predict that if we get a scrum base of Rinaldi, Jones and Mounis, and Berthezene at hooker, then Les Catalans will start knocking off everyone except the top three (St Helens, Bradford and Leeds). And they will likely be competitive even against the top three.

 

[screeny]

I read a lot of the comments on the game on totalrl forum, and like Gaz E's most of them were disparaging. Paul Cullen also, sensationally, said that a few of his players had to be carried and really let the club down.

This proves one thing: I must know nothing about RL as I thought it was an exciting game with a fair bit of enterprise from Wire (not so much from Catalans, but that's to be expected in their current plight, and what with being a new side), some 'bon gestion des tonnus' from Dobson and his lads, and the odd error and pushed pass that add the unpredictability that should accompany any sporting event.

Berthezene was good, Fellous has totally won me over, Rudder was pretty rubbish again, Dobson was good.....enjoyable RL, not like the garbage v Leeds. Fakir was quiet, which was a good thing for the other forwards as they did their share.

 

[bartman]

I'm glad to see this result, if only to show that Catalans won't be an automatic win when they're travelling, and also to show that they can win without the magic Stacey.

I really didn't expect much from them this season, except maybe a good record at home when everyone else is travelling. It takes time to build a team, as opposed to just throw together 17 players. Now they have a permanent coach working with them, they can only improve.

If Catalans did play badly, the fact that Warrington weren't up to it at home is even more worrying for them and their (loftier) hopes this season...

 

[East Coast Tiger]

The formula for Catalans' sucess seems to be simple. Put them on TV more often. That's two from two when the cameras are there.

 

[Dakink]

Any win is still 2 points - they wont remember if it was a terible win or not at the end of the season! Good luck to 'em!

 

[JasonE]

The ideal time probably should be:

Bosc,
Murphy, Hughes/Wilson, Sadaoui, Zitter/Wilson
Rinaldi,
Jones/Dobson

Mounis
Fakir, Hindmarsh
Guisset, Berthezene, Beattie.

Bench:
Rudder, Chan, Fellous, Teixido

Is Guigue out injured ?

 

[Robster]

Great game mruphy

 

[Gaz_E]

I feel i need to respond to the poster who mentioned me. I call it as i see it, i was at the game and Warrington were beyond awful. If Catalans had been anything more than ordinary i would have said so, but apart from one score they didn't have to work for their points. We gifted them field position and fell off tackles that i would expect to be made. We went toe-to-toe with Saints a few weeks ago, destroyed Hull (in the 2nd half) and looked to be getting some sort of form together. To turn up and put in a performance like that against a team who we should be beating isn't acceptable. Paul Cullen needs to take a portion of blame here if his comments are true in suggesting he thought i was going to be a bad day after the first set of 6. As coach he should have done something about it.