Super League Grand Final: Catalans Dragons' feat is huge for rugby league

Catalans Dragons are already history makers. Now they want to play a part in forging a golden future for French rugby league.

Just 15 years after being invited into Super League, they will compete in their first Grand Final on Saturday against St Helens. They will become the first non-English side to play in the domestic game's most prestigious occasion.

It comes at the end of a year in which their support has reached "inferno" levels in their home city of Perpignan. And it could be part of a huge leap forward for the wider game in France.

Catalans could be joined in Super League next year by a second French club. Toulouse meet Featherstone Rovers in the Championship play-off final - the 'Million Pound Game' - on Sunday. And with plans well advanced for France to host a World Cup in 2025, optimism for the 13-a-side game in the country has rarely been higher.

For the moment though, it is Catalans' success that has raised awareness of the sport to a different level.

Famously, rugby league was reaching far-ranging levels of popularity in France before World War Two. But the Nazi-backed Vichy government banned the game and handed its assets to rugby union clubs.

After the war, rugby league players and fans, many of whom had served in the Resistance movement, began to rebuild the sport. But its popularity began to wane again in the 1960s.

At the turn of this century two French clubs, Saint-Esteve and XIII Catalans, merged to create Catalans Dragons in order to compete in Super League.

Fortunes have fluctuated since their opening-night win over Wigan in February 2006. They reached the Challenge Cup final in 2007, external and then won it when they beat Warrington at Wembley in 2018. This year they have already lifted the League Leaders' Shield and now find themselves one game away from being crowned champions.

"The Challenge Cup was super. It put us on the map to a certain extent," said coach Steve McNamara.

"But this has gone to a completely different level. It's so pleasing to see for everyone involved in French rugby league.

"I think I understand because I've researched the history. But only the people know who've been here and kept the game afloat through the Vichy period and so many different tough periods of time, they've fought tooth and nail to keep the game going.

"For it now to have this kind of exposure, only those people can really tell you what it means to French rugby league."

McNamara told the BBC 5 Live Rugby League podcast that levels of interest in the team from the working-class district in the south of France has gone off the scale.

"We've got L'Equipe coming down now on a consistent basis, we've got Canal+ coming down and all the nationals. It's never, ever been seen before in this game," he said.

Support for the Dragons has also been hitting new heights this year. Perpignan has a strong traditional fan base for rugby league. But the club has reached well beyond their usual followers. They have also tapped in to the proud and passionate Catalans identity in the wider region.

They qualified for the Grand Final by beating Hull KR in last week's semi-final and a sell-out crowd reached fever pitch during the game.

"The expectation on our club last week and our team last week.. it was an inferno," said McNamara.

"The ground was an inferno. We got warned about it before that you'll never have experienced anything like this.

"It was like going to Istanbul and Galatasaray were playing. Absolute chaos."

Now McNamara's job is to cool heads after that big match on home turf and refocus his side for Saturday's Grand Final at Old Trafford.

"It's been the easiest job in the world," he said. "It was a sense of relief after that game, satisfaction that we'd got to the Grand Final. But this week you can sense an absolute different mentality from the group. They are free.

"It's not pressure now, it's excitement. And I know when our group is like that it's a very dangerous group."

Over 1,000 fans are expected to travel from France for the final and there has been a frenzy of activity at Dragons HQ to get as many across the English Channel as possible.

"There are so many people wanting to come and trying to find a way to get there. I don't know if you realise, but they changed the rules last week on passports," added McNamara.

"You now need a passport to get into England, which we find normal. But the French travel on Citizens Cards (national identity cards) and they don't have passports. They changed the rules last week on Brexit, so everyone now is chasing around trying to get emergency passports.

"And then obviously [there's] the Covid situation. I was in the office on Tuesday and the staff were filling in 800 passenger locator forms to try to get the work done for all the people.

"You have to see it to believe what the club are trying to do to get as many people across there. It's a massive effort."

Catalans have beaten St Helens in two out of three meetings this year, and they pipped them to top spot in the league ladder. But it is Saints, with their wealth of Grand Final experience, and who are looking for a third consecutive title, who will start as favourites.

But whatever happens on Saturday, the Dragons have won plenty of new fans with their successes in 2021. And they are leading the way in what they hope will be a French rugby league revolution in the coming years.