Robinson - Prep paid off

Coach delighted after Catalans Dragons progress to sixth round

Last updated: 28th April 2012   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Robinson - Prep paid off

Trent Robinson: Saw his Catalans Dragons thrash Sheffield Eagles in the Carnegie Challenge Cup

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Catalan Dragons coach Trent Robinson believed his side's preparation had paid off as they thrashed Sheffield Eagles to book their place in the sixth round of the Carnegie Challenge Cup.

The hosts ran in 12 tries in a 68-6 victory over the Championship side, with Damien Cardace scoring a hat-trick and Leon Pryce, Thomas Bosc and Eloi Pelissier touching down twice each.

Robinson was pleased with the way his side responded after going down 34-18 to the Leeds Rhinos in the Super League last time.

He said: "I thought we prepared well for today, we had to recover a lot for the time we had away in Leeds but I thought by the end of the week the guys were in pretty good shape and mentally we went into the game pretty focused on performing at home, respecting the cup and also continuing on our style of play."

Robinson defended his decision not to rest his big names, adding: "There was a bit about respecting the cup and our crowd and Sheffield, and then the other thing was that we had all our players playing semi-final football in the juniors or our reserve grade."

Robinson reserved special praise for man of the match, Scott Dureau, who converted 10 of the tries as well as playing a key role in a number of the scores.

"He looked good today, he took on the line, and if it didn't open up for him, it opened up for Leon, it was a nice day for those guys to attack the ruck," the coach said.

Aston disappointed

Eagles coach Mark Aston was left disappointed by his side's display.

"We pride ourselves on coming to bigger and stronger opposition and playing well and putting in a performance, unfortunately we didn't do that tonight," he said.

"At half-time we had 50 per cent ball control, and penalties were 11-3 against us, and it snowballed. When it's like that, you drain all your energies and you start to become tired and you saw the results of that in the latter stages of the game where they were running points in left right and centre.

"We're disappointed to say the least, very disappointed.

"Catalans are a quality team, you look at what they've done in Super League, just beaten by Leeds, and they've had a couple of results that haven't gone for them and they were going to be fired up.

"You can see the difference between full-time and part-time tonight - they were strong, fast and their energy levels were good and ours weren't."