Two sides widely tipped to finish the season mid-table, and
likely be battling it out for the last play-off place, met in Perpignan as the
Leeds Rhinos were in town to take on the Catalans Dragons.
The Dragons were slight favourites with the bookies despite
starting the game five league places below them, but a two-point handicap was
neither here nor there, as the Dragons looked to move up to ninth, the Rhinos with
their eye on fourth.
Leeds gave a debut to early season signing Australian centre
Ethan Clark-Wood in place of the injured Ryan Hall, and welcomed back Matt
Frawley and Brodie Croft, but they were still without the injured skipper Cameron
Smith who will be missing for the best part of two months.
[SPLIT]
Leeds should have opened the scoring on three minutes when
Jake Connor chased a Matt Frawley grubber into goal, the Rhinos full-back
knocking on over the line when he simply had to collect and ground. Leeds made
the crazy decision to use their captains challenge for a clear knock-on, wasting
their option so early in the game.
The game was littered with errors, stray passes and handling
mistakes, the action taking place in the middle of the park.
A superb Connor 20-40 kick, into the wind, gave the Rhinos a
platform on twenty-five but they spilled the ball on the second tackle. The
Rhinos defence was top notch but in attack they were struggling to keep the
ball or to get any go-forward.
Tensions spilled over on twenty-eight when Romaine Navarrete
dropped on a prone Andy Ackers. Navarette was yellow carded for the challenge,
the Dragons down a man until just before half time.
On thirty-six, just before Navarrete returned, Connor was
sin-binned for ‘pressure to the neck’. Leeds now without a key playmaker for
ten minutes.
Sixty seconds from half time a James McDonnell kick towards
the sticks took an awkward bounce before Matt Frawley managed to get a hand on
the ball to ground under the sticks. The referee gave a try, but the video
referee overruled for the Rhinos half back starting his run from an offside
position.
Five seconds from the interval Luke Keary spotted an
opportunity and slotted a thirty metre drop goal to take his side into the
interval with a single point lead.
A comedy of errors on forty-two saw the opening try of the
game saw Reimis Smith score off a Theo Fages pass after Harry Newman lost the
ball in the tackle twenty from the line. Arthur Mourgue added the conversion
for a 7-0 lead.
Ash Handley was within a few centimetres of grounding for
Leeds on the hour mark, but good defence held him short of the line. The clock
was moving against Leeds.
On seventy-one Smith got his second after Rhinos debutant
Clark-Wood was unable to deal with a Fages high kick, spilling the ball towards
his own line and allowing the Dragons centre to dribble over the line and
ground. Mourgue couldn’t add the extras, the situation unchanged for Leeds who
still needed two tries to take victory with eight minutes remaining.
The Dragons had a try ruled out on seventy-seven when the
video referee had insufficient evidence to overturn the referee’s on-field
decision. It was the last scoring chance of the game as Catalan took the win
and the points.
An awful game from both sides with the Dragons being just a
little less awful than the Rhinos. It’s a first win of the season for the home
side and lifts them out of zero pointers, alleviating the pressure on coach
McNamara for at least a week. This is the third year running that the Rhinos
have visited the Dragons and been unable to score a single point, an
embarrassing and shameful record for a club of Leeds stature.
Catalans Dragons: Mourgue (G 1/2), Makinson, Laguerre, Smith
(2T), Cotric, Keary (DG), Fages, Pangai Junior, Garcia, Bousquet, Sims,
Whitehead, Partington. Subs: Da Costa, Satae, Navarrete (SB on 28), Séguier. 18th
Man: Romano.
Leeds Rhinos: Connor (SB on 36), Lumb, Newman, Handley,
Clark-Wood, Croft, Frawley, Oledzki, Ackers, Palasia, Gannon, McDonnell, Bentley.
Subs: O’Connor, Lisone, Jenkins, Sinfield. 18th Man: Edgell.
Half-Time: 1-0.
Full-Time: 11-0.
Score Progression: (SB), (SB), 1-0 : HT: 5-0, 7-0, 11-0 :FT.
Lead Exchanges: Catalans.
Referee: Aaron Moore.
