Speaking on Sky Sports News, Wells looked ahead to Saturday's showdown between Catalans and reigning champions St Helens, and assessed the French side's Super League title credentials for 2021
Friday 21 May 2021 22:29, UK
Jon Wells believes Catalans Dragons are well-placed to make a push for the Super League title in 2021 as they prepare to take on reigning champions St Helens on Saturday evening.
The competition's French representatives reached the play-off semi-finals last year and are currently third in the table with five wins from six matches after their 27-10 win away to Hull FC on Monday evening.
Back-to-back champions Saints provide the biggest test of Catalans' title credentials so far this year when they meet in Perpignan this weekend, live on Sky Sports, and Sky rugby league pundit Wells has been impressed with what he has seen of the Dragons up to this point.
"Every single year they're a flamboyant team with a flamboyant, outspoken owner, they make statement signings year on year and I think some years you get a better iteration of Catalans Dragons than others," Wells told Sky Sports News.
"This looks like it is going to be a good year and, to use a poor wine analogy, it looks like it might be a good vintage for them.
"You've got (James) Maloney there in his second year, who is really starting to look at home. Sam Tomkins is playing the best rugby I've seen in his career and they've made a couple of astute signings in Mike McMeeken and Dean Whare, who has really unlocked that right edge for Catalans.
"Their Achilles heel has always been discipline, and it wasn't great against Hull FC - fortunately, Hull FC's was even worse than theirs. They seem to have arrived at the right end of experience and youth, along with young French talent peppering that squad with the English lads."
St Helens, meanwhile, have continued exactly where they left off in 2020, winning all six games in Super League - most recently, beating Salford Red Devils 28-0 on Monday - and reaching the semi-finals of the Challenge Cup to be unbeaten in all competitions so far.
Kristian Woolf's team have the best defence in the league, conceding just 34 points so far, and while they have scored 156 points, the is a sense from some observers there is still more to come from Saints.
Wells is surprised how they have managed to go about their business so effectively without generating much comment though, and is relishing Saturday evening's clash at Stade Gilbert Brutus
"Saints are a strange one because we've come to expect so much from them," Wells said. "How champions can sneak under the radar, I've got no idea, but we're not talking about them because they're quietly going about their business knocking off opposition after opposition.
"They're not being exciting and having us on the edge of our seat in doing it, it's just meticulous and metronomic, and it's not boring - it's fantastic and what they do is execute their skills brilliantly.
"But the standard has been there for so long for St Helens, people are asking 'what's next?' and what level they're going to go to next. I think it's a mouth-watering clash in prospect."
