Les Catalans vs St Helens

[AlbertRosenfeld]

Here is the team that flew out of Perpignan Thursday morning, to play St Helens Friday night:


Clint Greenshields

Dmitir Pelo, Adam Mogg, John Wilson, Thomas Bosc

Casey McGuire
Stacey Jones

Jason Croker,
Andrew Bentley, Julien Touxagas Mathieu Griffi,
Adel Fellous, David Ferriol, Alex Chan, Jerome Guisset
Lionel Teixido, Kane Bentley

18th man: Olivier Charles

Casty, Duport and Quigley are not there.
Wilson was apparently chosen ahead of Duport for his experience.

The match will kick off at Friday 8 pm Liverpool (UK) time or Saturday 5 am Liverpool (NSW) time. It will be telecast live by Sky Sports.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

http://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyle...=rleague/07/04/12/RUGBYL_Super_Nightlead.html

POTTER WARY OF "SCARY" SAINTS

By Ian Laybourn, PA Sport Rugby League Correspondent

Catalans Dragons coach Mick Potter admits the form of St Helens is "scary" as he bids to topple the world and engage Super League champions on their home ground.
Saints racked up more than 50 points each time the Frenchmen visited Knowsley Road in 2006 and have won five of their last six matches in emphatic fashion to move to the top of the table.
"This is the ultimate test I suppose, against the world champions," said Potter.
"Their form is a bit scary, isn't it?
"You don't need to be up for these sort of games. My players won't need a Churchillian speech from me. If they're not motivated for this one, they'll never be motivated."
Saints have averaged 36 points a match since recovering from their shock back-to-back defeats by Harlequins and Wakefield and are at full strength with the exception of loose forward Jon Wilkin, who will be out for six weeks with a broken hand.
"You can't really say there are any weak links," admitted Potter.
"It's a case of trying to control the football as well as you possibly can and get down the other end of the field so they don't play as much footie on you.
"It's a big challenge for us. Between Jason Cayless and (Leon) Pryce and (Keiron) Cunningham and (Paul) Sculthorpe and all the rest of them, once you engage them in the tackle they can all offload and play second phase out of that. It really burns you."
The Dragons, who are without seven regulars through injury, won three games in a row, including a notable success at Bradford, to climb into the top six for the first time, but they were beaten 38-16 at home to Harlequins on Monday.
"We've four back-rowers out and we're scratching around at the moment," said Potter.
"We're happy that we won three or four in a row, which gave us a bit of a launch pad, but we copped a bit of a kick in the bum against Harlequins and got what we deserved."
Friday's match will pit Sean Long against Stacey Jones for the first time since the veteran New Zealander gave him the runaround in New Zealand's record 34-4 win over Great Britain in Wellington last November.
St Helens coach Daniel Anderson is awareof the threat of Jones, who played under him for both the national team and the New Zealand Warriors, and is determined not to take the French club lightly.
"Catalans are a very big, physical team and Stacey Jones now has a few games under his belt so will be finding a bit of form," he said.
"Hopefully their new Australian players will still be feeling a bit knocked about from their first Easter.

 

[AlbertRosenfeld]

Catalans went to an early 6-0 lead after a try by second row Julien Touxagas. FOr 15 minutes Catalans playing welll. But just before the 20 moinute mark St Helens went on a try scoring spree, started by Jayson Cayless, followed by Leon Pryce. Neither converted by Paul Sculthorpe. St Helens 8-6 Catalans

Keiron Cunningham went in under the posts with a characterstic dive from dummy half from 3 yards out when Catalans markers were asleep. Scully converted. St Helens 14-6.

Catalans attack mostly unimaginative. Fail to use sufficiently a good attacking three quarter line.

Then Gidley over near the corner, Sculthorpe misses. St Helens 18-6. Catalans defence mostly good around the ruck area. Backline makes bad defensive decisions.

Right on half time Sean Long kicks a field goal. St Helends 19-6.

 

[AlbertRosenfeld]

Stupid pena;lty given by Catalans. St Helens get possession close to Catalans line. Paul Wellens scores in the first minute of the second half, right near the posts. Sculthorpe misses an easy one again. St Helens 23-6.

 

[AlbertRosenfeld]

A few minutes later Catalans attack the St Helens line. On the fifth tackle, from three yards out the dummy half fools the defence with a quick pass to the blind side where Dmitri Pelo juggles on the run before securing the ball and planting it down over the try line. Pity he did not run infield to the posts. Bosc fails to convert. St Helens 23- Catalans 10.

From then on the traffic is one way. Although the Catalans forwards mostly did not do a bad job defending in the centre of the field, it was the Saints ball movement out wide, and broken play, with the characteristic St Helens back up that led to several tries -- with a personal record of four to Paul Wellens. Maurie Faasavalu scored a barnstorming try fending off several attempted tackles, including those by Pelo and Greenshields that were foolishly attempted high on the big aggressive Samoan.

Final score: St Helens 53 Les Catalans 10

Les Catalans obviously suffered from the Easter back up with three games in 8 days (Good Friday Hull KR in East Yorkshire, Easter Monday Harlequins in France, and then the following Friday St Helens back in Lancashire).

And more misery on the injury front. The courageous prop Adel Fellous has been taken to hospital for an X ray. He heard a crack in his arm and fears that it is broken.

Casey McGuire is clearly not in good condition --- seems to have a back injury. He needs to be rested, with Bosc moving to five eighth and Murphy or Charles replacing him on the wing.

Stacey Jones did well with his kicking game. Pelo also impressed except for his attempted tackle of Faasavalu. Bosc is proving a good attacking winger. Kane Bentley looks a great prospect at hooker. But with Fakir, Raguin, Gossard, Fellous and Quigley all injured (not to mention Gorrell), and McGuire carrying an injury, they are running out of reinforcements.

 

[JasonE]

Typical St Helens running in 30 points in the final 22 minutes.

 

[ParraEelsNRL]

oh well, it's all part of learning to play with the big boys, I'm sure they'll bounce back next week.

Pity about the injuries though, thats the only thing that can kill their season.

 

[screeny]

Stacey Jones's kicking game was first class but it was really boys against men. Saints were winning almost every collision and landing on elbows and knees and made huge metres with every set.

I stopped counting after a while, but for the first five or six Saints tries, every time they got a penalty they scored a try.

McGuire was once again a spectator. He is this year's Rudder. Bosc made another unforced error (when the match was still a contest) deep in his own half to gift Saints a crucial score. Bentley was game but just too small it seemed.

 

[nadera78]

I've only seen the dragons a couple of times this year, but for me the stand out thing (both this and last season) was that the big name imports have been poor. The guys who seem to really give it a go and get stuck in are the frenchies. The imports look disinterested and actually lacking in core skills, especially maguire who is a big disappointment.

 

[winnyason]

the injury count is really hurting them, duport was injuried as well last week, look at the backrowers out raguin, mounis, fakir , gossard. let's hope they can pull one out of bag vs warrington at home.

 

[screeny]

I've only seen the dragons a couple of times this year, but for me the stand out thing (both this and last season) was that the big name imports have been poor. The guys who seem to really give it a go and get stuck in are the frenchies. The imports look disinterested and actually lacking in core skills, especially maguire who is a big disappointment.

Whilst I agree with you on McGuire, I think the other imports have done ok. Jones has been good - very good at Saints - Mogg and Wilson too. Gorrell was superb, for the short time he lasted, and Croker has been in the thick of it.

If one player can be selected from the whole squad to exemplify the right spirit, for me it would be Fellous.

 

[nadera78]

Jones it goes without saying.
Gorrell, I haven't actually seen due to the injury.
Wilson, I'm not really a fan of tbh, he's certainly nothing special.
Croker and Mogg, I'll go with your view 'cos you've seen tham a lot mroe than me.

Generally though I always think that imported players should always be really key players for a team, otherwise there's no point in having them, you might as well use locals. And for my money, guys like Wilson, Chan, McGuire and Greenshields just don't fit the bill for what I'd want out of them.