Catalans Dragons
Real club history, honours, and Grand Final appearances, sourced and cross-checked.
Data last verified: 11 August 2026.
Catalans Dragons — 0 Super League/British top-flight titles on record.
Club Background
Catalans Dragons are a professional rugby league club based in Perpignan, France, formed in 2000 through the merger of two local clubs, XIII Catalan and AS Saint-Estève. They entered Britain's Super League in 2006 as Catalans Dragons — the first club from outside Britain or Australasia admitted to a British top-flight rugby competition — and play at Stade Gilbert Brutus in Perpignan, expanded to roughly 13,000 capacity since joining. Their headline achievement is winning the Challenge Cup in 2018, beating Warrington Wolves 20-14 at Wembley — the first non-English club to win the trophy in its history. They also won the League Leaders' Shield in 2021, and reached Super League Grand Finals in 2021 and 2023, losing both.
Grand Final / Championship Final appearances (2021-2023)
| Season | Result | Opponent | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Runner-up | St Helens | 12-10 |
| 2023 | Runner-up | Wigan Warriors | 10-2 |
Covers Grand Final/Championship Final appearances only, from our Super League & British Champions list — a fuller historical ladder-position archive for Super League (mirroring what this site already has for the NRL) is planned, direct follow-up work.
Club history
Catalans emerged from a 2000 merger of XIII Catalan and AS Saint-Estève, initially playing as Union Treiziste Catalane in French domestic competition. The Rugby Football League admitted the club for the 2006 Super League season as part of an expansion push to grow the sport in France and give the competition a genuine cross-border top flight — a landmark move, since no club from outside Britain or Australasia had previously competed in a British top-tier league. They were granted exemption from relegation for their first three seasons to help establish the club. Their home has been Stade Gilbert Brutus throughout, redeveloped substantially since 2006 to its current capacity of roughly 13,000.
The club's most significant on-field achievements came under head coach Steve McNamara, appointed in June 2017 and the club's longest-serving coach at eight years before his departure in mid-2023. Under McNamara, Catalans won the 2018 Challenge Cup, beating Warrington Wolves 20-14 at Wembley on 25 August 2018 — the first non-English club to win the competition in its 117-year history; fullback Tony Gigot won the Lance Todd Trophy as man of the match, the first Frenchman to do so. Catalans had earlier reached the 2007 Challenge Cup final, losing to St Helens. In 2021, under McNamara, the club won the League Leaders' Shield as regular-season champions before losing that year's Grand Final, and reached the Grand Final again in 2023, losing 10-2 to Wigan Warriors.
Catalans missed the play-offs in 2024 for the first time since 2019, finishing 7th, and finished 9th in 2025, but have remained a Super League club throughout — including through Super League's 2024-25 introduction of an IMG club-grading system used to help decide top-flight membership independent of results, under which Catalans received a Grade A rating.
Sourcing caveat: Catalans were NOT relegated at the end of 2023 — cross-checked sources confirm Wakefield Trinity were the club relegated that year, while Catalans instead reached the 2023 Grand Final. A separate, later (2024-25) controversy over Super League's new IMG club-grading system put a club's top-flight status at risk independent of results, but the club affected in that story was London Broncos, not Catalans.
Sources
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