Sam Tomkins injury blow softened as McNamara reveals ‘light at the end of the tunnel’

Catalans Dragons dramatic 23-22 win over Huddersfield Giants was marred with star full-back Sam Tomkins leaving the field due to injury, however, head coach Steve McNamara has explained that there is some “light at the end of the tunnel”.

Unfortunately for Sam Tomkins, it doesn’t relate to his injury status, but instead to several other players in the squad who are now set to return to bolster Les Dracs for the final six games of the Super League campaign.

Sam Tomkins has proven pivotal in recent weeks with the 35-year-old scoring one of Catalans’ five tries last night, however, he looks set to miss significant time after sustaining a hamstring injury last night.

Sky Sports commentator Rod Studd even suggested that it could signal a second retirement as he boldly declared that Tomkins could be headed “back to the day job as a Sky Sports pundit”.

Studd then spoke with McNamara who talked about Sam Tomkins’ impact but offered little insight on his injury status: “I’ve talked to him really early on. I’ve not even seen him yet at the end of the game. He’s done an outstanding job for us. I thought he was great tonight. Really, really good. We missed him at the back end of the game, quite clearly.

“We had to make some big changes there but you know Cesar Rouge is available, Jordan Abdull will be fit again next week, Reimis Smith lands in France tomorrow and Mike McMeeken is not too far away.

“We’ve got some light at the end of the tunnel but are disappointed to lose Sam, particularly the influence he’s had on the team.”

The reinforcements come at a crucial time with Catalans set to face a tough run of Hull KR, Leeds Rhinos, Wigan Warriors and Salford Red Devils.

Catalans scrape past Huddersfield despite Sam Tomkins’ injury

The injury blow for Sam Tomkins is also lessened slightly by the fact that Catalans actually managed to come away with the win, which for long periods of the game looked assured but came under threat near the end.

Huddersfield scored two tries in five minutes late on to level the game before Arthur Mourgue’s drop goal secured the win in what Steve McNamara described as a “frantic” end to an otherwise good performance.

He explained: “The end was frantic. I think we conceded back-to-back tries which we didn’t need to. I thought we started the game great, I thought we had a great balance of power and shape in our attack and our defence was pretty strong.

“But the two yellow cards during the game, penalties at crucial times during the game. That’s probably the one area I’m disappointed with the discipline, but I thought we were worthy winners tonight. We only kicked one goal, and scored five tries, so a couple of those would have made it a little bit easier.”

The win takes them six points clear of Leeds Rhinos but they still have to play the Rhinos in this tough run of four fixtures with last week’s shock loss to London Broncos leaving them still feasibly catchable. Despite that, McNamara has backed his team’s ability to go all the way.

“I think we’ve shown against any team in the competition we can do it. What we’ve done over previous years has been a little bit more consistent than we have done this year. There are a number of reasons for that, but we haven’t quite been as consistent. We’ve still got it on the big game, on the big occasion, no doubt about that.”