After cementing his position as one of the best players in the world with Canberra Raiders in the NRL and as an England international, Elliott Whitehead is now back at Catalans Dragons to finish his playing career in the south of France.
DEJA-VU… it’s a French expression for the feeling that you have experienced something before and nobody in Super League is feeling it more strongly than Catalans Dragons’ prodigal son Elliott Whitehead.
The 35-year-old Bradford-born second-rower has gone full circle in his career which began at his beloved Odsal, switched to Perpignan then a nine-year spell at the very top of the NRL with Canberra Raiders before looping back for a swansong season in the south of France.
He can be excused for having an overload of deja-vu for his second sight of Stade Gilbert Brutus but he insists it feels brand new with a new regime guiding Super League’s French club.
He told Rugby League World, “I kept an eye on the Dragons all of the time I was in Australia and I loved what Steve (coach McNamara) was doing with the club, winning the Challenge Cup and making two Grand Finals, and more than that, I really saw a progression in the team and the club as a whole.
“They seemed to know where they were going and I wanted to be a part of it again. It’s the place which really kick-started my career and I will always be grateful for that.
“If I can help in any way to get them some silverware this season then nothing would make me happier.”
Whitehead was happy in his first stint with Les Dracs from 2013 to 2015 and he’s even happier to see the club is in much better shape.
He said, “When I was here the first time we had a really good mixture in the squad and we were all pulling together. It was just after I left when some players joined the club and maybe didn’t have that bonding needed to be successful.
“Until Steve took over some players might have treated a season or two in the south of France as a holiday and it gave the club a pretty bad name.
“Recovering from that period and image took a lot of hard work by the entire club and it’s good to see that period is well and truly over.
“There are some French players who are still here from that time, our captain Ben Garcia, Julian Bousquet and Fouad Yaha do a great job making sure that we all get together and bond.
“All us ‘foreigners’ have bought in and we all get on which is important because most of us are here without family or support networks. The French guys have taken us in and introduced us to their families which really helps.
“At the end of the day we all want rugby league to be as big as it can, having strong Catalans and Toulouse sides in France can only make the game bigger on the world stage.
“Steve’s done a great job to revolutionise the development of junior players here in Perpignan and I’ve heard there is a lot of hard work being done in Toulouse too.
“The quality of young player coming through at training now is on a different level compared to the last time I was here.
“It pushes us all to see great kids bursting with enthusiasm and talent. There’s a young lad called Léo Darrelatour who’s just been given a pro contract and to be fair he doesn’t look like he’s got much on him.
“But when he gets that ball he’s transformed, he runs incredibly hard and he’s good in the air and definitely one to watch.
“Another one is a young centre called Clément Martin and he’s not far off getting his big chance in the first team at some stage this season.
“Both these kids have a rugby union background so it’s good to see they have chosen league as a career, this didn’t use to happen before Catalans invested heavily in their junior development programme.”
Like most people in the game, Whitehead is concerned about the direction of the sport in Europe and he would be keen to see the NRL to get involved with the governance of the game.
He added, “I’ve played for a while in the NRL and the way they run the game down there is on another level.
“It’s obviously a much bigger sport, but you have to accept that in Europe there is much more competition from other sports. Football and rugby union dominate the headlines in England and France so it’s difficult to gain the big TV deals and sponsorship.
“Having said that, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to have the NRL running it. The platform it has established in Australia is really strong and they would be coming in with confidence and new ideas.
“Nobody likes to see people being ousted or losing their roles in the game but it’s clear that some things have to change.
“It’s sad because when I was a kid, watching Bradford Bulls play Leeds Rhinos was the biggest thing in the world to me.
“We were getting big crowds, good TV coverage and headlines in the newspapers but there’s only a few teams now that get those attendances and recognition.
“I’m just a player, somebody else has to look into the reasons why and what we should do next to get the game going back in the right direction.”
The (however remote) prospect of his hometown team returning to the top flight lights up Whitehead’s face even though I reminded him that the years have been tough on facilities at the famous Bradford bowl and they might not reach required Super League standards.
“There’s nowt wrong with Odsal,” he snapped with a grin.
“It’s a beautiful stadium, when I was younger they were probably the biggest club in the world, they certainly were to me and my friends.
“If we can get them back into Super League in the right shape it would be massive, for the city of Bradford too. There are a lot of people who would return to those famous terraces and bring back some very special times.”
That’s one for an increasingly difficult-to-predict future. For the here and now Whitehead is already fixated on the job in hand.
He said, “This will be my last year of playing although you never know, I will see how my body holds up.
“I definitely want to stay in the game, it has given me so much and I would like to put something back in and stay relevant within the sport.
“Other people will decide but I feel like I would make a good coach and at some stage I’m going to sit down and talk to the right people about it.
“It would probably be heading back towards Canberra way (he was captain of the club for the past three years) and I’m sure Ricky Stuart and Don Furner over there will have good advice for me.
“If there is something available I would be keen to go back there.
“I feel I’ve had a successful playing career, even though I’ve never lifted a Grand Final trophy.
“The future will look after itself, the main thing for me is to put every ounce of effort into helping Catalans win that big trophy. What a way to hang up your boots.”
