CATALANS DRAGONS broke their duck with a first win of the season over Leeds Rhinos but there will be no celebrating in the dressing rooms according to coach Steve McNamara.
The longest-serving boss in Super League had no time for champagne as he savoured a bitter, hard-fought slog.
He said: “It was a really tough match, the conditions were awful, the wind and the rain at times made it difficult to play but I thought we got our identity back as a team tonight.
“We want to play more attractive Rugby League, score some nice tries, create great breaks, but I think we got caught in between over the past couple of weeks.
“We got back to having some brutal, strong defence and not worrying too much about our attacking side of the game in conditions like tonight. We just did enough to win that game.
“On a night tonight it was about picking up scraps, loose kicks and mistakes and that’s how we scored our points.
“It’s the type of performance we needed tonight. It wasn’t fancy, it was built on hard work.”
His opposite number, Brad Arthur, was in no mood for celebrating either, describing the mood in the changing rooms as “sombre”.
He said: “Frustrating is a good word to describe how we are feeling. I’m disappointed for the amount of effort and the attitude they put into that game.
“It’s even more frustrating when you look at the mistakes in simple execution of our skill. We had a poor completion rate and didn’t build any pressure and create any flowing footy.
“You can’t turn it on one week and not the next, we need to be more consistent in what we’re doing. It’s a simple game and we didn’t do the simple things good enough tonight.
“We’ve got to keep working, we can’t give up on an effort like that. The want and the desire is all there but we need to execute our roles better from one to 17.
“The good thing about Rugby League is you’ve always got next week so you’re only as good as your last game, which is this one and we weren’t real good, but we’ll pick the spirits up and tidy up concentration around our skill and get stuck into it next week against St Helens.”