How ‘re-set’ can make Catalans Super League challengers again

Catalans Dragons head coach Steve McNamara has spoken on the ‘re-set’ his side have undergone after a disappointing Super League season.

Whilst lots of sides will have been disappointed with their 2024 Super League campaign, few saw such a fall from grace as Catalans with the Dragons slipping from Grand Finalists to outside the play-off picture.

The French outfit played their Round 27 game against fellow underperformers Hull FC knowing that their fate was already sealed as they missed the top six on points difference.

Looking back across the season, the loss to London Broncos is an obvious one for where Catalans failed to make the play-offs but McNamara has now spoken with The Daily Mirror to reveal that mistakes from the previous off-season were the major factor.

Heading into 2024, Catalans failed to truly replace the retiring Sam Tomkins and Mitchell Pearce but they’ve ensured not to make the same mistake for 2025.

How Catalans have learned after slide down Super League ladder

Tomkins is back and he’ll have NRL veteran Luke Keary in the halves as well with experience being the clear directive of the club’s recruitment policy.

Others to join include NRL winger Nick Cotric and Super League legend Tommy Makinson as like-for-like replacements after both Tom Johnstone and Tom Davies left.

The pack is also bulked up by the arrival of Tevita Pangai Junior and former Catalans star Elliott Whitehead, however, change is not just limited to the players, as McNamara explained to The Mirror.

“There’s been a lot of change throughout the organisation, not just players. We have two new assistant physios, a new head of performance and two new assistant coaches,” the Englishman noted.

“It’s a real re-set for us and a refreshing start. We’ve had a good run the last few years but eventually missing the play-offs last year and our form was disappointing. Change was needed. And we’re up and running now in pre-season.”

After Catalans’ loss to London Broncos in Round 20, which came early on in an eight-game spell that saw the Perpignan club win just twice, club owner Bernard Guasch threatened wholesale changes prompting some concern for McNamara’s job.

On that and the general disappointment, McNamara revealed it had all been cleared up: “He was clearly disappointed with not having a season we’re proud of or the one we thought we’d have. But those types of years and finishes to seasons sometimes happen. The biggest regret would be if you don’t learn from that. And we have learned.”

The biggest lesson for the Dragons to learn would be avoiding a late season collapse as they did in 2024 but the fixture list has not been kind with six of their final eight games on the road in 2025, that could be tougher done than said.