Catalan Dragons 40-36 Leigh: Julien Bosquet seals late win

Match stats: Catalan Dragons 40-36 Leigh

Catalan tries: Broughton, Simon (2), Duport, Moa, Horo, Bousquet  
Catalan goals: Walsh (6)

Leigh tries: Dawson, Tickle, Reynolds (2), Hopkins (2)  
Leigh goals: Dawson (6)

Match report

Julien Bosquet scored a last-minute try as Catalans Dragons came from behind to beat Super League's bottom side Leigh Centurions 40-36.

Ben Reynolds scored 20 points for the visitors in Perpignan, including a penalty which restored their lead with five minutes remaining, but Leigh were unable to convert a 16-point half-time advantage into victory.

Matt Dawson, Danny Tickle and Reynolds went over as Leigh dominated the opening stages, only for Jodie Broughton and Mickael Simon to reduce the deficit before a Sam Hopkins double restored Leigh's dominance before the interval.

Simon and Vincent Duport went over to give Catalans two tries in as many minutes after the break, and after Reynolds crossed again, tries from Sam Moa and Justin Horo levelled the scores and set up a tense last 10 minutes.

A Reynolds penalty put Leigh ahead before Bosquet powered over in the dying seconds.

The win was Catalans first since Steve McNamara took over as head coach, but it was a result that looked unlikely as Leigh stormed out of the blocks.

Cory Paterson almost created a try-scoring opportunity in the second minute, before a Krisnan Inu knock-on gave the visitors field position to attack and Glenn Stewart picked out Dawson to send the winger over.

Leigh doubled their lead when Paterson's quick play allowed Liam Hood to send Tickle charging over close to the posts.

Reynolds dummied to the supporting Tickle before darting through some poor Catalans defence to touch down, with Reynolds' third goal giving the visitors an 18-0 lead after 18 minutes.

Catalans responded, with Broughton going over in the right corner and Luke Walsh's flat pass sending prop Simon over to score.

A Reynolds kick down the right was allowed to bounce by Fouad Yaha. Ben Crooks collected the loose ball and passed inside to the supporting Hopkins, who touched down to score before completing his brace just before the interval when a Leigh scrum led to a penalty and Reynolds sent him in under the posts.

Ben Crooks was sent to the sin bin for kicking out and punching and Catalans took advantage of their numerical supremacy as Paul Aiton and Tony Gigot combined to send in Simon, before Gigot picked up and ran down the short side and, via Walsh, found Duport.

Reynolds acrobatically touched down Josh Drinkwater's grubber but again Catalans came back into the match as Moa was first to Walsh's low kick.

Greg Bird sent Horo charging over to score down the right and Walsh's fifth goal levelled the scores at 34-34, only for a Reynolds penalty to give the Centurions a two-point lead.

With the seconds running down, Aiton attacked the Leigh line and managed to offload the ball to Bousquet, who charged over from short range to score the match-winning try.

Match reaction

Catalans Dragons head coach Steve McNamara on his first win in charge: "It's a proud moment for me to be here after a win. The attitude and behaviour of the players on the field tonight was one that pleased me. They gave everything tonight and never gave up and were rewarded at the end of the game with picking up the two points.

"It's a result that has the ability to give us confidence in the coming weeks and we have a tough run of games coming up we will take that into next week."

Centurions head coach Neil Jukes on missing the chance to climb off the foot of the table: "Obviously it was a tale of two halves, the first half we were very dominant, we won a lot of the collisions and on the back of that we had a very strong penalty count in our favour.

"In the second half we couldn't get any penalties, there was a tough call on Matty Dawson where he's had the ball reefed away from him and that led to a Catalans try. On the back of that we were too busy thinking about defending and not concentrating on playing.

"Naturally we are disappointed, there are some good things that we can take away but obviously we still have some things to work on. I'm very disappointed about the last try. We spoke about the penalty count swinging away from us in the second half and in the first set we gave away a penalty and that set the tone for the second half.

"Then in the last minute we don't play the ball correctly and you don't want to be in those kinds of situations that we put ourselves in. We've got to get some consistencies in our game across the board and get a little bit of looseness out of our game and keep striving to get an 80-minute performance."