Joel Tomkins speaks out on Steve McNamara’s dismissal, taking charge and injuries after Wigan Warriors hammering

Joel Tomkins has stressed the need to start ‘building foundation’ as he prepares to take Catalans Dragons through the remainder of the season.

Tomkins has picked up the reins at the Stade Gilbert Brutus following Steve McNamara’s sacking earlier this week and it’s fair to say his first game in charge of the club ended in disappointed as the Dragons were thumped 48-0 by Wigan Warriors on Saturday night.

The Dragons failed to trouble Wigan on home soil and as they searched for a reaction, they could do little to prevent Matt Peet’s side from scoring eight tries.

Tomkins didn’t expect to be the man in charge of Catalans when he started the week, but the last few days have seen him thrown into the deep end in Perpignan and after the game he spoke publicly for the first time in his new position.

“It was a bit of a shock to everyone on Tuesday morning (McNamara’s dismissal),” Tomkins told Sky Sports. “Then we had a session Tuesday and a session Thursday to try and fix a few things up.

“The boys have responded, they’ve come in, trained and prepared well, we just came up against a team there who are on the top of their game, it’s a well-oiled machine Wigan and we just weren’t good enough to stop it when it got rolling.

“We’re playing against the best team in the competition, I know Hull KR are doing a great job but for me Wigan are still the best team in the competition and they came fully loaded, they only had Abbas Miski missing out of their 17, and we’re doing it tough.

“We had 11 French boys in the team which is a positive but we’re probably missing eight of our top 17. No doubt about it, we’re doing it tough. There was some glimpses in there in the first half, I thought we got into a little bit of arm wrestle and hopefully we can start laying a foundation to move forward this season.

“We’ll get over this one however we can and move onto next week, but like I say we need to start building foundation for the rest of the season.”

Catalans Dragons’ injury hope

Catalans Dragons were missing the likes of Tommy Makinson, Nick Cotric, Benjamin Garcia and Sam Tomkins on Saturday, but the interim boss hopes to have at least some players back next week when they take on Hull FC in the south of France.

“Hopefully we get a couple of bodies back next week,” Tomkins said while addressing the days ahead. “We won’t get too many but two or three boys could come back, they’re probably 50/50.

“It’s looking more like Hull KR after the Challenge Cup final when we’ll be looking a bit more healthy with our squad. The plan for next week is get back together Monday, regroup, look at what we can improve on in the game and look at some small areas that we think we did well in and try and maximise those and then make improvements.

“We’ve got 15 games left now and if we improve every week then hopefully we can be around the play-off spots, but we’ll concentrate on next week for now and then build throughout the year.”

Défaite à Brutus pic.twitter.com/N5WQgMBs2d

— Dragons Catalans (@DragonsOfficiel) May 24, 2025