Catalans Dragons 24-32 Castleford Tigers: Another win for leaders

Match stats: Catalans Dragons 24-32 Castleford Tigers 

Catalans tries: Albert (21), Gigot (27), Yaha (35), Duport (68)
Goals: Gigot (21, 27, 35, 68)
Castleford tries: Hitchcox (8, 74), Hardaker (19), Minikin (53), McShane (77)
Goals: Gale (8, 13, 19, 53, 74), Hardaker (40) 

Match report  

A Jy Hitchcox double secured a 20th regular season win for the Castleford Tigers as they defeated Catalans Dragons 32-24 in Perpignan.

The Tigers scored two late tries to secure the win despite being down to 11 men at one point in the second half following the sin-binning of Kevin Larroyer (unsportsmanlike behaviour) and Mike McMeeken (holding down in the tackle).

Castleford took the lead in the ninth minute. Grant Millington offloaded to Luke Gale who spread the play to the left and Michael Shenton sent Hitchcox away down the wing to score acrobatically. Gale added the goal to give the visitors a six-point advantage.

Three minutes later, Gale added a penalty following a ball steal by Justin Horo before Zak Hardaker scored a superb 90 metre solo effort to extend the Castleford lead. Gale added the conversion to take the score to 14-0.

From the restart Catalans marched up field and youngster Lucas Albert took a neat offload from Julian Bousquet to score under the posts. Tony Gigot added the conversion to narrow the Castleford lead.

Catalans were back in the game in the 27th minute when a bobbling ball was picked up by Gigot who fed Krisnan Inu. The former New Zealand centre cut through the Castleford defence before passing back inside to Gigot who raced around under the posts to score. Gigot converted his own try.

The home side took the lead in the 35th minute when Fouad Yaha got on the end of a flowing move that went through six pairs of hands as the ball moved from right to left. The Catalans winger scored in the corner. Gigot added the touchline conversion as the Dragons led 18-14.

As the hooter sounded for half-time, Castleford were awarded a penalty for a high tackle. Zak Hardaker nailing the kick from just inside the Catalans half to narrow the lead to two points.

Thirteen minutes into the second half and the Tigers retook the lead as a Gale kick to the right was knocked back by Joel Monaghan into the arms of Greg Minikin who chipped ahead behind the Catalans defence and won the race with Horo to touch down. Gale added the extras with another successful kick.

But Castleford pressed the self-destruct button on the hour mark as Larroyer was sin-binned for unsportsmanlike behaviour, attempting a tackle on Vincent Duport, before three penalties in quick succession saw Castleford placed on a team warning. McMeeken suffered on the back of that as he was also sent to the sin-bin in the 67th minute as Castleford were reduced to 11 men.

Catalans took advantage, Richie Myler kicking to the corner for Duport . He dived for the ball and despite the efforts of Monaghan was in the process of touching the ball down when Hardaker kicked it out of his grasp. A penalty try was awarded by the video referee. Gigot added the conversion from in front of the posts to give the Catalans a 24-22 lead.

With five minutes remaining the Tigers spread the ball to the left and a second acrobatic effort from Hitchcox saw them retake the lead, with Gale against adding the extra points to put his side four points ahead.

In the final moments of the game Gale put through a grubber kick and the ball rebounded from a Catalans leg into the hands of Paul McShane. The Castleford hooker danced his way through the Catalans defence to score in the corner. Hardaker missed the conversion attempt from the touchline but his side had already done enough to wrap up victory. 

Post-match reaction 

Castleford head coach Daryl Powell on the victory: "I think it is a big win for us obviously. The circumstances of it with us going down to 11 men and still defending like we did. I thought there was some really tough calls out there. I don't know how they gave that try in the corner (Duport's try in the 68th minute was awarded as a penalty try by the video official).

"I just thought the character and effort from us was outstanding. I thought we started the game really well and then allowed Catalans back into it a little bit.

"I thought they played really well at the back end of the first half but I thought we did some special things when we were under pressure. I thought that Jy Hitchcox produced two world-class finishes and as a team we just have so much character and determination and we're not willing to be beaten. It was a fantastic win for us."

Powell on the testing conditions: "It was warm out there. We're playing against a really physical team, they've minimal injuries and we've got six or seven injuries so for us to come away from home to Catalans in these conditions was a huge, huge effort for us to win that game."

Catalans head coach Steve McNamara on a fourth defeat in five games: "I'm disappointed we never closed the game off. I thought we were in a position to win the game after a dreadful start, we dominated large parts of that game. Our lack of ability to control the ball and control the period of time the Castleford were down to 12 men and 11 men for a short period of time probably cost us."

McNamara on seeing some improvement: "I think that we've been better on discipline and penalties for a few weeks now. I think we had some serious issues in the past, I've investigated those and I've looked into those and tried to help us improve in and around that area I think that was clearly evident today.

"We were on the end of a 13-4 penalty count last weekend and the players just got on with the job and we were in the contest until the last five minutes. We've improved in a lot of areas.

"We've been competitive in every game since I've been here, we've given ourselves a chance to win every game since I've been here and a lot of that has been down to sheer hard work, effort, energy and the ability to turn up to work every day and try and improve.

"To try and be a successful team, not only now but in the future, a team has to have those qualities. Now our job is to add some polish on top of that but you can't put that first, you have to have those attributes first and over the last five weeks, we've gone a long way to reinstating those in the Catalans Dragons."