Catalans led Leigh Leopards 12-0 in the first half at St James’ Park, but had the game snatched away in an error-ridden final 40 minutes as they lost 26-24.
And a groin injury suffered by hooker/captain Ben Garcia added to their woes. Coach Steve McNamara said: “He came off and wasn’t fit to go back on.
“He will work extremely hard this week to get himself fit for next week, but clearly will be a doubt.”
McNamara revealed Catalans will remain in England ahead of the semi-final, at York.
McNamara explained: “We’re staying in Leeds, it was a choice we had to make.
“It was a long journey yesterday – we had to go Perpignan to Barcelona to Leeds Bradford to Newcastle.
“We didn’t want to have to do that again, going back tomorrow and then fly out on Thursday for a Saturday game, which we would do for a semi-final.
“We decided to stay, but we will have to go back to France after the semi-final. We can’t stay any longer than that, but we will have to return for a Thursday game against St Helens.
“We know what’s in front of us. We are disappointed with today, but it won’t put us off in terms of what our challenge is next week and how we go about it.”
Catalans Dragons boss rues costly errors in Magic Weekend defeat
Assessing his side’s performance against Leigh, McNamara conceded: “I thought we played really poorly.
“You’ve got to give the opposition credit, they got the job done and have done that against us a few consecutive times now.
“They have found a way to do it, but we missed that many tackles in the first half and made that many errors in the second half, we feel we gave that one away in some regards.”
The coach felt some big decisions went against his men, but accepted: “If you don’t do the job well enough yourself, you leave yourself open to those calls.
“I am just really disappointed – we are not a team that can make lots of errors and miss a lot of tackles and rescue games.
“We have to do the basics really well, which we have been doing, but we didn’t do that today and for me, that’s the disappointing thing.”
Défaite frustrante à St James’ Park. pic.twitter.com/8SU61jd6RT
— Dragons Catalans (@DragonsOfficiel) May 3, 2025
