With two more positive tests in our camp over the weekend, Catalans match against Warrington tonight has also been postponed.
This leaves our chances of getting to the minimum match number fo qualify for the play offs virtually over.
After all the effort and expense of trying to get matches on and fans in the ground, this is a massive blow to the club.
It looks like we will be finishing the season (if at all) behind closed doors in Perpignan after the latest upgrade in Covid restrictions in France.
With both the Giro and Vuelta having trips into le hexagon cancelled this weekend it was inevitable I suppose that an uptick in cases would lead to restrictions.
There is now a 10pm curfew and no gatherings of over 1000.
Elite 2 Championship Results – Round 1
Carpentras 28-14 Lyon
Pia 34-10 Lescure
Entraigues 20-18 Baho
Toulon 56-4 Salon
Villegailhenc 38-20 Villefranche
For all of the news, views and round up click here to visit Love Rugby League's coverage.
The playoffs that seemed within our reach a couple of weeks ago now look most unlikely as we will struggle to get to the minimum number of completed matches required to take part.
Tonight's match with Hull FC has been postponed due to an outbreak in the Catalans camp.
We hope all of our affected personnel recover quickly and the effects of Covid aren't serious.
With the cancellation of the Wigan match, this one is important on 2 levels.
Firstly, the game needs to take place so we can get closer to the minimum number of matches played to qualify for the play offs and secondly we need to win it!
We have mixed form at home against Hull so fingers crossed we will be able to get the win and keep the pressure on the other clubs around us.
More discussion on the match is on our forum here... https://forums.rlfans.com/viewtopic.php?f=71&t=630817
Wigan have had positive tests and our match with them tomorrow is now off.
We have to play 15 matches to "complete" the season. We have played 12 and will be keeping everything crossed we can play our remaining matches to get to that number.
I fear Bernard might go on the rampage if not.
Hooray... covid permitting we will have some rugby league action to sustain us over the cold winter months.
Elite 1 and Elite 2 are going to be up and running soon.
Here is a link to treize mondial which has the best coverage of the season.
Its defaulted to the Catalans dashboard but you can support other teams (if you want!)
https://treizemondial.fr/equipe/st-esteve-xiii-catalan/
Let's hope for a good uninterupted season and a Catalans vs Palau grand final to keep all of us happy.
...ok, ok I know we play Wigan next and we always get hammered by them, but let's just pretend that we don't have to travel and play them.
Catalans Dragons (22) 34
T : Joel Tomkins 2, Tom Davies 2, Israel Folau, Benjamin Garcia
G : James Maloney 5
Hull KR (0) 4
T : Harvey Livett
G :
Catalans showed no mercy to struggling Hull KR as the momentum of a potential play off push continues to build at Stade Gilbert Brutus.
With a first half performance that blew the visitors away the Dracs continued to score points in the second half and go into their tough trip to Wigan in high spirits.
Catalans put 40 on Wakefield as their season hit its stride at just the right time.
The Dragons recently completed a league and cup double over Trinity before this encounter in the covid hit season.
We have a key few weeks coming up now where it will be important to keep this momentum going to be in with a chance of making the top 4.
I know its not ideal to have ppg as the format for ending the season but in this odd campaign we have to work to the rules and despite forum people saying otherwise, we certainly aren''t getting preferential treatment.
It's the sort of match that doesn't usually happen to Catalans.
Under strength after a rapid run of games, Leeds made a large number of changes. In previous campaigns though I would have expected their fringe players to step up and batter us.
Thankfully this time we had enough to give them a good hiding and raise spirits and morale for what is going to be a busy and important run in.
Our last league match saw us go into it top of the league before Wigan beat us (as usual).
It's not all over by any means but a second consecutive league defeat, this time at the hands of Warrington Wolves wont be helping morale or the quest for post season football.
To be fair, the home side were the better side so we need to improve and soon...
after cup exit to Salford.
This one started so well and I hoped that we would have enough to blow them away in the first half.
It didn't work out like that and its safe to say that Salford have the sort of spirit and stickability in matches that we sorely lack.
Well done to them, I hope they go on and achieve more in the competition.
I will resist the temptation to be critical of the coaching team !
When a match goes to golden point, you are in the mad house and it's impossible to be critical of the team.
Let's try and move forward now in the Super league.
Just when things started to look all shiny and rosy...
Wigan rocked up in Perpignan and despite it not being the usual level of beating for us, were still good enough to get home and dry without too many issues.
Sigh.
We were lucky enough to bag Trinity twice in consecutive weeks back in August.
I was in Cornwall on the phone continually to job agencies stressing about how Covid had robbed me of a livelihood, but it was a nice boost for me to see Dracs get a couple of wins.
The league match was really one sided with us outclassing Trinity...
The cup match was a lot closer, but we were still good enough to get over the line.
What a good couple of weeks for us. Could this be the start of a decent run?