Joel Tomkins missed Catalans Dragons’ clash with Hull FC on Sunday afternoon due to ‘a personal matter’, stand in boss Ryan Sheridan has confirmed.
Sheridan was the man in charge on Sunday as Catalans went down 24-20 at the MKM Stadium after a spirited second half performance. The French side found themselves 22-0 down at half-time and in truth, they were their own worst enemies at times with errors and poor discipline costing them dear.
However, hey hit back with four second half tries with Leo Darrelatour scoring twice, with Lenny Marc and Charlie Staines also touching down. That took the Dragons to within two points of Hull on the scoreboard, but they never quite got themselves over the line in their head coach’s absence.
And, speaking after the game, assistant Sheridan explained why Tomkins was not at the MKM Stadium.
“He’s dealing with a personal matter but he should be back for next week I think. He’s all good,” Sheridan told Serious About RL.
On the game itself, he added: “Poor first half from us. Hull were good and took advantage of some of the things we did to ourselves, some poor errors and I think our completion was at 53 per cent, with seven errors, penalties and a couple of six agains and we conceded some soft tries around some kick plays. I was really disappointed with the first half performance but Hull were good, they put us on the back foot.
“We lost two players early. We lost Alrix (Da Costa) within a minute or two and then we lost Benny Garcia, two key players for us, that hurts your rotations. The first half was poor, but the second half, the first 20 minutes was a tough block of work for us and after that we stepped up a little bit. Toby Sexton stepped up, Kruise was good and Charlie Staines, we found bits, scored some tries and put some pressure on.
“It was a nervy finish for them and we could have nicked it. Proud of the second half performance.”
Da Costa could be seen limping out of the action with around 90 seconds on the clock in the first blow of the day for the Dragons and he was joined in the dressing room by Garcia, who would go on to fail a HIA. Garcia will miss next week’s game with Toulouse Olympique and Da Costa will be checked but Sheridan does expect Lewis Dodd to be available once more.
“Benny will miss next week, failing his HIA,” he said. “Alrix didn’t look good and we’ll know more after our injury checks and reports and he’ll be a doubt for next week.
“Doddy had a bang on his knee and wasn’t quite right. We made a decision, there was enough disruption as it was, so we thought we’ll settle down and get to next week. He’ll be good for next week I’d imagine, we’ll do our reports and checks and see if he’s good to go next week.”
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