“As long as I’m president of the Catalans Dragons, I’ll never play a Super League final again” – Guasch reacts to Grand Final officiating

After a superb season which saw the Catalans Dragons rightly finish top of the league, they failed to go all the way last night as they were beaten by St Helens in a fantastic Grand Final.

It was a tight contest between the competition’s best two teams and it really could’ve gone either way. Ultimately, St Helens edged the game 12-10 thanks to a Kevin Naiqama brace. However Catalans still had time to win it after Naiqama’s second but had an attacking chance taken away from them when Sam Tomkins was controversially punished for an incorrect play-the-ball.

That was one of a number of decisions which went against the French side. Fouad Yaha could’ve had a penalty try when Tommy Makinson was sin binned in the second half and some believe an incident of foul play went unnoticed early in the game.

Ultimately, this has left some feeling that the Dragons were hard done by. Some even claimed that the French side were robbed by official Liam Moore who was enjoying his Grand Final debut along with the Dragons.

That was certainly the view of Catalans’ President Bernard Guasch in an interview with French paper L’Independent in which he vowed the Dragons won’t play in another Super League Grand Final unless it’s officiated by Australian referees.

He said: “As long as I’m president of the Catalans Dragons, I’ll never play a Super League final again until we have three Australian referees.

“I’m furious, at some point I say stop? I wanted to react like an English gentleman because I have a lot of respect for this competition.

“I am proud to have lived these three extraordinary days at Old Trafford as the English know how to organise them.

“But I saw the match again and I tell myself that I cannot let this go by without reacting and making a decision.”