SAM TOMKINS believes Catalans Dragons’ players must take responsibility for Steve McNamara’s exit, as he confirmed elder brother Joel Tomkins is in interim charge.
McNamara has left the French club after almost eight years as their head coach.
“We went into the club as normal for our 8am meeting,” fullback Tomkins told Sky Sports of events yesterday (Tuesday).
“Steve came in and said he’d had a meeting before that and the club had made the decision to let him go as head coach.
“Given the defeat last week to St Helens, the club have obviously thought about that.
“It’s not just the one game, the owner (Bernard Guasch) isn’t happy with the season overall – as he shouldn’t be, we’re losing more games than we’re winning.
“He thinks change needs to come and that changing the head coach can be the catalyst for that.
“We felt we had a very good squad this year. I still think we’ve got a very good squad.
“For some reason it’s not clicked. We got off to a pretty poor start, hit a bit of good form, and then died off again.
“As a group of players we take responsibility for that. We’re certainly part of the reason Steve is no longer head coach.
“Joel will take over in the interim. He has taken over training and will be in charge.
“We’ve 16 games left and Joel will try to implement change.
“The club will be doing some hard work trying to find the best option, whether that’s Joel going on further or bringing somebody in.”
Joel Tomkins’ first match in charge will be against the brothers’ former club Wigan Warriors on Saturday at Stade Gilbert Brutus.
