Eagles suffer 12-try defeat to Dragons

Damien Cardace scored a hat-trick while Leon Pryce, Thomas Bosc and Eloi Pelissier touched down twice each, with Vinny Finigan’s effort all the Championship side had to show in response.

Robinson said: “I thought we prepared well, we had to recover a lot for the time we had away in Leeds (having played the Rhinos in Super League) but I thought by the end of the week the guys were in pretty good shape and mentally we went into the game pretty focused on performing at home, respecting the cup and also continuing on our style of play.”

Robinson defended his decision not to ‘rest’ his big names, adding: “There was a bit about respecting the cup and our crowd and Sheffield, and then the other thing was that we had all our players playing semi-final football in the juniors or our reserve grade.”

Robinson reserved special praise for man of the match Scott Dureau, who converted 10 of the tries as well as playing a key role in a number of the touchdowns.

“He looked good, he took on the line, and if it didn’t open up for him, it opened up for Leon. It was a nice day for those guys to attack the ruck,” the coach said.

Eagles coach Mark Aston was left disappointed by his side’s display.

“We pride ourselves on coming to bigger and stronger opposition and playing well and putting in a performance, unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight,” he said.

“At half-time we had 50 per cent ball control, and penalties were 11-3 against us, and it snowballed.

“When it’s like that, you drain all your energies and you start to become tired and you saw the results of that in the latter stages of the game where they were running points in left right and centre.

“We’re disappointed to say the least, very disappointed.

“Catalans are a quality team, you look at what they’ve done in Super League, just beaten by Leeds, and they’ve had a couple of results that haven’t gone for them and they were going to be fired up.

“You can see the difference between full-time and part-time – they were strong, fast and their energy levels were good and ours weren’t,” added Aston, himself a Challenge Cup winner with the Eagles when they beat Wigan in 1998.

Catalan Dragons: Pryce, Sa, Stacul, Bosc, Dureau, Ferriol, Henderson, Casty, Menzies, Raguin, Pelissier, Gossard, Millard. Substitutes: Simon, Fakir, Paea, Baitieri, Duport, Cardace.

Sheffield: Knowles, Yere, Turner, Morrison, Straughier, Brown, Taulapapa, Brambani, Stringer, Howieson, Finigan, Higgins, Rowe. Substitutes: Hirst, Henderson, Green, Scott, Szostak, Hepworth.