FOUR WINS from five and a 40-point victory would make most coaches happy but Steve McNamara is still seeking improvements to his Catalans side.
A 40-16 win over Super League strugglers Castleford on Saturday night couldn’t raise a smile from the former England coach as he continues to tweak his new-look team, particularly in attack.
“There’s a lot of improvement we need to make on that performance, we weren’t quite on it for whatever reason tonight,” he said after the match.
“We might have scored more points on the scoreboard than we have done so far this season but we didn’t attack particularly well.
“Now that’s not all on (halfbacks) Théo Fages and Jordan Abdull, it’s the whole team that didn’t perform in the way that we intended. We were better last week and scored less points.
“You set your own standards and I’m not angry but a bit frustrated that we didn’t finish this five-game block off in the manner we wanted.
“We’re four from five, reasonably positioned in the competition and we’ve got players coming back next week, which is great, but we need to improve.
“We got exactly what we expected from Castleford and we’ve been very good at restricting teams in the opening rounds in terms of yardage. But they are the team that’s probably troubled us the most.
“That’s the disappointing thing, they did what we thought they would do and we didn’t across the 80 minutes.”
McNamara paid tribute to his captain Ben Garcia who stood in at hooker, adding: “Ben had to play in that position tonight, Micky (McIlorum) and Alrix (Da Costa) were both missing, plus Jayden Nikorima, who can step into that position.
“Ben’s our leader and anybody who plays alongside him understands the importance of him to our group.
“He led from the front as usual and when César (Rougé) came on I thought he brought some real energy to the group and it was great to see him score a try.”
McNamara reported no major injury worries from the game, although second-rower Tariq Sims failed to complete the game.
He added, “Tariq hurt his ankle in the first half, he got through to half-time but he was too sore to go out in the second half. It’s probably a good sign that he made it to half-time but we’ll have to get it checked out and see where he’s at.
“It’s been a tough few weeks but it’s what we expected, we’ll have three days’ rest and prepare for the cup game at Halifax. We need to freshen up after the first five games because it’s going to be yet another tough game.”
