Not too disheartened with the loss. Catalans controlled the ruck all game. Their late offloads killed us too.

We seemed to chuck it about a fair bit in our half. Not sure if it was a deliberate tactic from Smith, all I know is it gave me heart palpitations all game.

Scrambled really well in the second half, but the damage was done in the first half with some soft tries conceded.

We've been crying out for a team to not throw in the towel for god knows how long. Smith has seemingly achieved this, we may miss the play off this season but it finally feels we are heading in the right direction.

Effort was there in spades and can’t fault that. Too many individual errors today along with taking the wrong option.
Disappointed I some ways as thought could have beaten them today if we’d been less wasteful but not down hearted.
We let them dictate the pace and slow the game at every opportunity as they clearly didn’t want a quick game.
Thought McIntosh, Scott were excellent today along with Swift before his injury. Savelio, Ligi, Fash, Houghton & Cator worked tirelessly with Clifford and Trueman trying. Thought Lane also a better game coming on for Lovodua who was a poor selection for me.
Carlos had a game he will likely want to forget and Satae whilst doing so good runs for me, didn’t carry the ball enough.

Thought Catalan for a side sat at the top were disappointing and just came with spoiling tactics and slow the game.

Would like to see Staveley given an opportunity in the 2nd row moving on from today.

Pleased we are no longer throwing the towel in and caving in like seasons before and now are digging deep and fighting for each other to stay in games and give ourselves a chance.

Onwards & upwards.

cant fault the effort today, but silly mistakes were punished today by the best team in the league, last game v saints we were getting the bounce of the ball, today it just wasn't happening, even the short kick offs weren't happening for us today. Would like to see Carlos have had a word with Moore about the gamesmanship from Catalan, timewasting at every opportunity, Tomkins wasn't afraid to be in the refs ear most of the match, time we did the same!

Tomkins pushes Houghton out of the ruck area and nothing is said.

Houghton does it and its a penalty.
Give me strength.

Think the talking to the ref is where we are naive as we just don’t question anything particularly as to the difference in what we get pinged for. Think we are also too honest at the ptb instead of diving/falling or making a meal of things to gain a penalty/6 again etc.

If there was ever a reason why we need to sign some big forwards , then that was it , We defended well but we was always struggling to contain Les Dragons pack .
They slowed the ruck area down and made it even more difficult to make any yards .
Not to disappointed with the result , couple of poor reads and the result could have been different .

Then there’s Bousquet‘s try - surely that was double movement. Dived over with ball in his right hand, right arm goes down during tackle, removes ball with his left hand and puts the ball down outside the upright. Not saying we’d have won but wrong calls, small margins and momentum. If right calls made maybe we wouldn’t have had to force it.

Great post. Had a solid dig - didn't really feel that Catalans got out of 2nd gear but we had some extended periods of quality defence and our attack under Smith is much improved

Yeah noticed that too

It’s inconsistencies like that which infuriates fans.

Any news on Swift? That try on the first half hooter was top notch