SAM Tomkins admits he still hurts from losing last year’s Super League Grand Final with Catalans – and not just because his 'knee, ankle, elbow, shoulder and back' have been playing up.
The Dragons start their bid to go one better than the Old Trafford loss to St Helens against Leeds on Friday.
But the pain of missing out 12-10 is still firing the England captain towards bringing glory to the south of France.
Tomkins said: “It still stings. I’m a bad loser and I love winning, I compete at everything and I don’t think anybody gets over a loss like that.
“The big thing for me is winning the Grand Final with this club, one that’s never won it before. To come within two points of that was devastating – it won’t just spur me on, it’ll spur the club on for a long time until it wins one.
“We learned how to play in big games last season. We’re better prepared this year as the majority of the squad has experienced a big semi-final or final game.
“It’s not the same preparation – the feeling’s different, the atmosphere’s different, the pressures different.”
Catalans will have a strong squad for Friday’s game after blooding 10 youngsters against Wigan in their final regular season match.
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Tomkins, though, believes we should already be done given the number of matches teams go through – and will tell strategic partner IMG as they review the sport.
The 33-year-old full back added: “Injuries are inevitable in our sport but we play too many games, I think that contributes to it.
“There’s too much stress on clubs' squads, we’ve seen in recent weeks we’re a little too far stretched.
“Let’s go for a bit more quality over quantity.”
Leeds head to Perpignan for the third time since the end of July after getting past Castleford 14-8 in a last day top six shootout.
Tomkins, though, admits nothing can be gained from how the Rhinos performed in an awful match, insisting: “They were very average but Leeds have been here that often, they should all be speaking French!
“We’ll discount that Cas game as we prepare, we’ll be expecting the best version of Leeds. That wasn’t what they produced then, they were well off the mark that day.”
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