The reality is-as it often is-somewhere in between.In fact Wiliame Anderson and Bosc have not recovered.There are also 3long term injuries. But it is much better that I feared.
Probable Dragons team Gigot- Yaha Inu Thornly Duport---Walsh Myler---Casty Aiton Moa --Garcia plus one other-Bird .Interchange Bousquet Simon Da Costa plus one other.I live in Newcastle so this is a home match for me.

yep as expected catalans bring 4 of their star players back in, seems they threw the cup game last week at hull fc... mind you we could be guilty of that too!

team for me

mamo
mcgillvary
cudjoe
murphy
mcintosh

leeming
gaskell
ridyard

ikahihifo
wakeman
ferguson
hinchcliffe
roberts

bench-

rapira
clough
obrien
mellor


mason and wood to miss out maybe, not sure where mellor fits in now really so stuck him on the bench

its a shame wood is likely to sit out as he has been brilliant for us but at least it shows we are getting back to full strength.

Sam Wood has time on his side.

He's going to play SL for many years to come IMO.

future second rower maybe, got the size for it

Can honestly say today was the worst magic ever- and I've been to them all- poor atmosphere all day. It's not magic anymore...

dont worry will be even worse for our game!

last one up there anyway

Starting today, the Next 3 fixtures will decide whether we are super 8s or middle 8s.

Awful first half from Giants and that ref. He seriously must be the worst SL ref there is.

Chris Kendall, ref of Widnes/Wakefield match, takes that accolade I think.

Did not go as Newcastle is a crap venue due to shortage of Hotels, but watched on Sky. Glad we won and I think we deserved to - we were very ordinary, Catalans were poor. Having won I think it carries more weight when I say the ref was absolutely dreadful. None of the refs have developed since Hanson took charge of them. That is the problem not Campbell, Kendall, Child or Hicks. Look at the departure of Silver wood, Hick and Cobb, there is something far wrong in the management and development of refs.

Another thing about watching on Sky, Bill Arthur is an awful commentator, think he was wearing a Catalans rosette as he commentated, absolutely blinkered, poor Catalans, if only they hadn't made any mistakes they would have won by 25 points (he actually did say something like that and he was not joking!).

He's a close second- but Campbell is completely clueless- if it wasn't for Thaler we'd have lost that!
Completely inconsistent in his reffing.
I'm not sure we deserved the two points- awful line speed, lost the ruck time and again, awful fullback play, awful kicking game, awful ball handling.

Nice to see we did it tough when the chance for points was there. Let's face it we are a very ordinary team and when the other team play badly we have to capilitise, they did that today. Last time we played catalan they were equally dire and we failed to capitilise. This kind of win is the only kind this years team are going to get.

Good to get the 2 points in a scrappy knockonathon

Will have to improve to get the win away at Wakey.

Mellor and O Brien really impressing me atm.

Murphy is much better at centre than on the wing!!!!

Anyone else noticed Jake Mamo really does struggle to throw the ball correctly? don't know whether its technique or what? I remember a Newcastle fan mentioning this when we made the signing.

Good job Thaler was on the ball today, not only with reversing the refs bad calls on the two no tries, but also with the call for a Catalan goal line drop out, and then over ruling a head and feed scrum when the ball clearly came off a Cats player and hit Sam Rapira