Elima - Dragons can roar again

Elima: Grand plans

He used some harsh words when he spoke to the team. We looked each other in the eye. We weren't happy with him and he wasn't happy with us.

Olivier Elima
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Olivier Elima has revealed that an ear-bashing from club president Bernard Guasch helped turn around the fortunes of Catalans Dragons, who now stand just 80 minutes away from a maiden Grand Final appearance.

The Dragons take on defending champions Leeds Rhinos at Headingley on Friday evening in the play-off semi-final and enter the match on a roll after winning on consecutive weekends at St Helens, Wakefield and Huddersfield.

Elima traces the dramatic transformation in form to his side's surprise home defeat by Wakefield a month ago which appeared to end their hopes of finishing in the top eight.

"That game probably changed everything," he said. "There were a few upsets in the board and the president let us know about it in the changing room afterwards.

"He used some harsh words when he spoke to the team. We looked each other in the eye. We weren't happy with him and he wasn't happy with us."

Vitriolic

In his vitriolic attack on the players, Guasch accused them of letting the club down and told them they were all free to leave.

The Dragons players responded to the stinging criticism a week later by winning at St Helens to secure their play-off spot and, after gathering momentum in sudden-death victories over Wakefield and Huddersfield, Elima says there is belief in the camp that they can go all the way.

"We went to St Helens just to prove a point, not to the board or the supporters, but to ourselves, that we had a good squad," he added.

"We played for each other and it worked out pretty good. We kept on going, we had the motivation and, now we're only 80 minutes from the final, anything can happen.

"We don't want to be watching Leeds playing St Helens or Wigan in the final. We want to be there. We're not finished yet."

Catalans were selected as the Rhinos' opponents as part of the League's new 'clubcall' system, with Wigan sent to St Helens in Saturday's second semi-final, but Elima says the decision will not add to their motivation.

"We're not really surprised," he said. "We thought if Hull KR had won, they would probably pick them because they won against them the other week.

"But when they lost we thought they would pick us because we've never won over there and Leeds won pretty easily at Headingley and in Edinburgh this his year.

"I don't really think it will add to the motivation. At the end of the day, they had to pick one team.

"We can motivate ourselves as we have done for the last three weeks, we don't need this choice to add to that."