Ex-Catalans Dragons man Arthur Mourgue on his Steve McNamara sacking ‘surprise’

Former Catalans Dragons man Arthur Mourgue admits he was surprised by the sacking of Steve McNamara earlier this week.

While there has been no official confirmation from the club at the time of writing, McNamara was relieved of his duties on Tuesday morning following last week’s 40-0 hammering at the hands of St Helens.

That result was the club’s third loss in a row in all competitions and having lost six of their opening 11 league games, the decision was made to part ways with McNamara and bring an end to his near eight-year spell in charge.

McNamara was the head coach who gave Mourgue his debut with Catalans and the playmaker went on to make 103 appearances under him before moving on to join Hull KR earlier this season.

As such, looking on from afar, Mourgue was understandably gutted to the Yorkshireman lose his job and he gave his reaction to the news on Friday night on Sky Sports.

“Of course I was surprised, you never want to hear news like this,” Mourgue said after Hull KR’s 31-12 win over Warrington Wolves. “He’s been my coach for a long time so I was sad for him but that’s rugby league. It’s always difficult to be in this situation and I feel a bit for him.”

Arthur Mourgue hails ‘freak’ Hull KR man Mikey Lewis

Mourgue joined the Robins from Catalans Dragons in March and has so far made seven appearances for the club, with four tries coming along the way. In that time he has managed to dovetail with half-backs Mikey Lewis and Tyrone May and the Frenchman has taken the opportunity to pile praise on the former.

“He’s a freak, you can see every game he makes something special out of nothing,” Mourgue added on the Man of Steel. “It’s really good to play with him because he was annoying playing against him. It’s his personality, he never changes, he competes hard.

“He’s special for us because sometimes there’s nothing on and he can create something, we want everyone to be a threat and he’s a big threat for us.

“There’s no time to take a rest, every game we need to go hard.”