CATALANS DRAGONS were criticised for a lack of fight by head coach John Cartwright after their 42-20 defeat at Huddersfield Giants.
The French side trailed 36-0 at the end of a meek first half, then scored three of their four tries in the final quarter after having Franck Maria sent off.
“We just didn’t show a lot of fight,” said a frustrated Cartwright.
”We didn’t play well with the ball, but we certainly didn’t show any fight to stop the amount of ball that we gave them.
“It’s not good enough at this level. If you’re not prepared to hurt when you’re not playing well, this happens to you.
“Individuals have got to take accountability, but it’s also a team thing. Stats don’t tell that story and sometimes the scoreline doesn’t tell that story, but you know when you’re in a team that’s fully up for a fight every time they run out onto the field.
“You don’t always win, no one expects that, but you expect sides to fight for every inch of ground and fight until the 80th minute. We fought hard with twelve men, so it’s there.
“I’m part of this – I take responsibility and accountability for where this side sits at the moment.
”I’m a fan as much as anyone, and I want to see the side that I support fight like hell for every inch. It’s just not there at the moment.
“No disrespect to Huddersfield, but this was a winnable game and we should have been excited to come and fight hard to the end.
“I’m not doubting there’s effort. There’s effort in different patches of the game. As coach it’s for me, between now and the end of the year, to make those passages go for longer.
“That comes with experience, and it comes with games like that as well. There was too much (bad stuff) in the first half. There were too many soft tries.”
Cartwright gave a concerning update on young centre Hugo Cellier, whose debut came to a premature end through a leg injury after being caught in a tackle.
He said: “The early signs are not good, but I won’t say anything more as we won’t know until we get the scans.
“I was happy with how he played, with his heart on his sleeve. If he wasn’t out there, the scoreline would have been even bigger at half-time.”