Catalans Dragons head coach Joel Tomkins reflected on his side’s disappointing loss to Warrington Wolves in Super League as Les Dracs went from a 22-6 lead to lose 30-22.
They had raced into that lead with the third try resulting in loud boos all around the Halliwell Jones Stadium and they’d add to that ten minutes later when Tommy Makinson scored his third.
The winger injured himself in the process and from there, momentum seemed to shift as Warrington scored just before the half and just after it, before eventually scoring two more including the go-ahead try in the final ten minutes.
Joel Tomkins spoke to Sky Sports post-match and confirmed that Makinson had suffered an AC joint injury, arguing that it is “probably hard to tell” in terms of a recovery timeline.
Asked for his assessment of the game, he bluntly labelled it as “the story of our year”, adding: “Just too many errors, we gave them penalties coming out of their own end. I don’t think we caught one ball on the full from their last plays.”
Despite that, he explained: “I’m really, really proud of some of the effort that we put in the first half. You saw what we can do when we’re on. The problem with us at the minute is we can’t do it for 80 minutes.”
Catalans Dragons boss rues errors after Warrington Wolves loss
Sam Stone’s try early in the first half seemed to set off a period of around 25 minutes where Warrington were knocking on the door before they eventually scored the go-ahead try. Throughout that period, Catalans made countless mistakes and Tomkins referenced them.
He said: “Second half, yeah, it just went away from us and this anxiety and these errors and penalties started creeping into the game and a couple of things went away from us and against us. That’s the game.
“The team who puts the ball in the right area of the field more often than not get the win, and we didn’t do that tonight.
“There’s loads of positives out of this game and loads of things we’ll take into next week and the next few weeks on the back of that but ultimately, we’re still not getting the results, so it’ll be a pretty disappointing changing room.”
With the play-offs now mathematically out of the question, despite being unrealistic for some time, Tomkins was asked how Catalans will approach the final six games.
He admitted: “We’re going to have a completely different squad next year, so it’s not as though we’re looking at tactics and the way we want to play next year. We’ll try some things out as staff in these last five games, we want the boys to get the most out of it and get whatever they can out of it.
“Personal motivation is a big one for us. We’ve spoken about that all week. Personal pride, personal motivation. It’s been a really poor season for us as a club, coaching staff, players and the club as a whole so we want our fans to have something to cheer about.”
Having been appointed to an interim role in May before taking the job on full-time and for the next two years more recently, Tomkins admitted that it’s been a busy few months.
The former Wigan and Hull KR man said: “We’re trying to rebuild the squad for next season and change a lot of things at the club so it’s been a baptism of fire, to say the least.
“But I’m sure I’ll come out to the end of this season a better coach and ready to go for the next couple of years as a head coach.”
Warrington Wolves come from behind to beat Catalans Dragons 🚨🐺 pic.twitter.com/yRO7XNdacc
— Sky Sports Rugby League (@SkySportsRL) August 14, 2025
