Catalans Dragons v Saints - Preview

There’s an Anglo-French clash you can get excited about this weekend when Saints visit Catalans Dragons on Friday night (May 5, kick-off 7.45pm). 

There was a real lack of buzz around last weekend’s England v France international at Warrington. That only added to the feeling that the week long break taken by the professional leagues seemed more like a year at times. It’s hard to get excited about two half-strength sides going at it in the name of international test ‘fuddy’. Even more so when England put up 64 points without reply in both the men’s and women’s fixtures against French sides which - if you didn’t know better - you’d swear were ideologically opposed to improving. This is not what we meant when we all called for more internationals to build on the foundations laid by a great World Cup.

So it’s back to domestic matters then. Well…sort of, give or take the small matter of a channel hop. Saints were superb in their last outing against Warrington Wolves and now face the challenge of the fourth-placed Dragons. Steve McNamara’s side started the season really well with just one defeat in their first seven league outings. Yet they come into this one desperate to halt a run of three successive league defeats having gone down to Warrington, Huddersfield and Salford in the month of April.

Notwithstanding a vintage showing in beating Warrington 28-6 Saints’ overall form can still be best described as patchy, That success came on the back of consecutive losses to Wigan and Hull KR and there have also been defeats to Leeds and Leigh in the first nine league matches under new Head Coach Paul Wellens. It leaves Saints sixth in the table albeit with a game in hand over all the sides above them. Victory in this one will take them above the Dragons into the top five.

Wellens has had to get by without most of his starting pack in recent weeks. He will still be without Sione Mata’utia and Agnatius Paasi through injury plus Morgan Knowles who remains suspended. Yet there are one or two key pieces trickling back into the reckoning. Joe Batchelor made a massive difference against Daryl Powell’s Wire and this week Wellens can welcome back Alex Walmsley into his 21-man squad selection. The big man has not featured since damaging a hamstring in the early moments of a 38-0 drubbing of Wakefield Trinity at the end of March. If he is fit to play it will be a massive boost to Saints’ go-forward. His selection will reunite one of the strongest front rows in Super League alongside James Roby and Matty Lees. 

Batchelor should get another start in the back row alongside another returning regular - Curtis Sironen -  while Knowles’ 13 slot should be filled by the increasingly dependable James Bell. Sam Royle will hope to see more game time after starting the last two. Jake Wingfield is also in contention. Injury has reduced him to just one appearance since mid-March. 

Fullback Jack Welsby is the only Saint in line to back up from the England game. He will operate behind a back division shorn of the services of Mark Percival. He missed the Wire game with a hamstring issue which Wellens says is likely to keep him out for four or five weeks longer. While he is sitting it out Percival will have yet another clear out of his knee. Is nobody else concerned about this? At this point Percival - who is nominally a centre but might as well be a back rower in the current system of play - is basically being held together with sellotape and superglue. His absence will likely mean a barely fathomable sixth consecutive start for his fellow treatment room dweller Will Hopoate alongside form horse Konrad Hurrell. 

Tommy Makinson - who suffers similarly to Percival in wear and tear but has so far proved a little more durable - is named and if fit seems likely to nudge the unfortunate Tee Ritson out of the side. Or Wellens could do what he has not been shy to do already this term and make room for Makinson by canning the excellent, uber-reliable Jon Bennison. In the halves Jonny Lomax is excelling rather than showing any signs of his 32 years or his own career catalogue of injuries. Saints’ leading try-scorer in 2023 with five tries, Lomax will get another opportunity to continue his partnership with the NRL-fancying but frankly out of form Lewis Dodd. 

Expect to find Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook and Joey Lussick named on the bench with Royle or Sironen (or both) alongside them. Wingfield, Lewis Baxter, Wesley Bruines and the emerging star that is George Delaney will also hope to see action. 

The hosts have only called on 20 players for their initial selection. Among them for the first time will be former Sydney Roosters and Cronulla Sharks threequarter Matt Ikuvalu. He joined the Dragons on an initial deal to the end of the season at the end of April. There is an option to extend into 2024. His addition will be a welcome one with try-scoring number 5 bus Fouad Yaha still out with a shoulder problem. 

Also included is influential halfback Mitchell Pearce. Tellingly, the ex-Rooster and Newcastle Knight missed all three of the Dragons’ recent defeats and last played in the 22-18 win over Castleford Tigers on April 1. In his absence another former Rooster in Adam Keighran has had a run in the halves but he has done so alongside a different partner every week. Sam Tomkins, Arthur Mourgue and - incredibly - England back rower Mike McMeeken have all had a crack. With Tyrone May out Keighran may get his chance alongside Pearce who should bring some much needed ship steadying qualities. 

Or…Keighran may play at hooker given that both Michael McIlorum (suspended, natch) and Alrix Da Costa are ruled out. The Roosters old boys club continues with the presence of Siua Taukeiaho in a ‘middle group’ which also boasts McMeeken, Julian Bousquet, Benjamin Garcia, Manu Ma’u and Matt Whitley. This is a forward group which is capable of giving Saints plenty to think about. Which let’s be honest, is not something every Super League side can say.

If those guys can lay a platform then there is plenty of ammunition for Pearce to use in the backs. Tomkins is not quite what he was but can still turn it on while the wing combination of Toms Davies and Johnstone does more than compensate for the loss of Yaha. If Ikuvalu is to make a debut then it may be at centre where Matthieu Laguerre is out. 

The last meeting between the two ended in defeat for Saints. Tries from Makinson, Mata’utia, Welsby and Ben Davies were not enough to avoid a 20-18 reverse in Perpignan in July. That after Saints had earned a commanding 36-20 win there in early April as Welsby, Percival, Dodd, Batchelor, Knowles and Dan Norman all crossed the stripe. It was the second win for Saints over the Dragons in 2022 after a 28-8 opening night triumph which saw a Makinson double added to by Hurrell, Dodd, Roby and Lussick.

Of course the most famous Saints-Dragons scuffle remains the 2021 Grand Final. Sorry Dragons fans…not the Magic Weekend clash five weeks earlier. Underneath the Old Trafford lights Kristian Woolf’s side earned the third of their four titles in a row with a squeak-inducing 12-10 win. Two Kevin Naiqama tries proved decisive as the Fijiian carried off the Harry Sunderland Trophy in his final game for Saints. At which point he retired, only to play for two more clubs in the shape of the Roosters (they’re everywhere) and now Huddersfield Giants. It’s a retirement which would make the producers of Neighbours blush.

This week the return of Pearce coupled with our erratic form is making me slightly nervous. Yet the inclusion of Walmsley and Sironen added to the majesty of the performance against Warrington gives me great confidence. It could be a close one but in the finest traditions of Mark Lawrenson’s stint as the BBC’s Premier League prediction man I’m backing my own team. Again. Saints by six.

Squads;

Catalans Dragons;

1. Arthur Mourgue 2. Tom Davies 3. Adam Keighran 6. Mitchell Pearce 8. Mike McMeeken 10.Julian Bousquet 11. Matt Whitley 12. Paul Seguier 13. Benjamin Garcia 15. Mickael Goudemand 16. Romain Navarrete 17. César Rouge 18. Tiaki Chan 19. Arthur Romano 21. Matt Ikuvalu 22. Siua Taukeiaho 23. Jordan Dezaria 24. Tom Johnstone 26. Manu Ma’u 29. Sam Tomkins

St Helens;

1. Jack Welsby, 2. Tommy Makinson, 3. Will Hopoate, 5. Jon Bennison, 6. Jonny Lomax, 7. Lewis Dodd, 8. Alex Walmsley, 9. James Roby, 10. Matty Lees, 12. Joe Batchelor, 14. Joey Lussick, 15. Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook, 16. Curtis Sironen, 18. Jake Wingfield, 19.Jame Bell, 22. Sam Royle, 23. Konrad Hurrell, 24. Lewis Baxter, 25. Tee Ritson, 30. George Delaney, Wesley Bruines. 

Referee: Liam Moore