Interim-boss Ryan Sheridan admits Catalans Dragons need to find a way of taking their home form on the road.
The French outfit followed up last week’s encouraging win against Warrington Wolves in Perpignan with an error-ridden display which saw them thumped 46-4 at Super League leaders Leeds Rhinos on Friday night.
Catalans lost Ben Garcia to a head injury which will rule him out of next week’s home clash with Leigh Leopards, but Sheridan wasn’t looking for excuses in his post-match press conference.
“Our away form at the moment is not good enough,” the former scrum-half admitted.
“We are looking at things we are doing as staff, how we can improve that, but you can’t start any game like we did – we put ourselves under pressure and fatigue took its toll.
“I’m not sure what team we are at the minute. I think at home we are okay and we compete and are there or thereabouts.
“We had a good win last week, but we can’t go from that to this week after week. It’s about getting the best players out on the field who can do the job.
“We are trying things at the minute and having a look at players and we have got to get to that level. It was a good level Leeds played at and we didn’t help ourselves.”
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Catalans Dragons “dominated from minute one” by Leeds Rhinos
Catalans were up against it from the moment they knocked on the opening kick-off.
“It was a poor start and Leeds were good, they dominated us from minute one,” Sheridan accepted.
“There’s a reason why they are top of the tree, they have been good and we got taught a harsh lesson. You can’t make errors like we did.
“I thought they left a few points out there as well in the first half, we were lucky. At 16-0 at half-time it was salvageable and at the start of the second half, for 10 minutes we were competing, then the floodgates opened again.”
Sheridan felt the constant defence his side were forced into before the break took its toll afterwards.
“The game’s about fatigue and field position and pressure,” he reflected.
“We put ourselves under way too much pressure. At one point we’d had 24 per cent possession, which is nothing – we had no field position or possession and they completely dominated us. It takes it out of you.
“We were under pressure most of the game and then you are doing things with your game that aren’t really what you’re about, you are trying things and it doesn’t look great. It was a tough night for everybody.”
