Catalans Dragons v Leeds Rhinos: Five takeaways as ‘curse of Stade Gilbert Brutus’ continues for ‘shambolic’ visitors

Following Catalans Dragons’ 11-0 win over Leeds Rhinos in round four of Super League, here are our five key takeaways from the Stade Gilbert Brutus.

The top line

Leeds nearly got off to a perfect start with a try after just three minutes, but Jake Connor spilled the ball just as it looked like the line was at his mercy.

Luckily for them, though, it didn’t come back to bite them. Catalans did threaten the line on several occasions but, as has been a theme for much of their season, they just couldn’t break through.

For all of Catalans’ pressure, a yellow card to Romain Navarrete handed momentum back to the visitors, however they failed to make this numerical advantage count after repeated errors in Catalans’ half.

Leeds quickly copped a yellow card of their own soon after, with Jake Connor sent to the bin after a crusher tackle, but in that period Leeds nearly made the first dent in the scoreboard through Matt Frawley.

A nothing kick on tackle five  got caught in the Perpignan sky, almost like it had been blown back by God, bounced off the post and sat up perfectly for the on-chasing half-back, but his score was chalked off for offside.

This quickly came back to haunt the visitors, as Luke Keary knocked over a drop-goal to make it 1-0 as the clock hit 40.

Les Dracs added the next points too just after the interval, as Reimis Smith crossed the whitewash as he scooped up Harry Newman’s knock-on to score.

You felt, with Catalans’ attack still not clicking, it would take another Leeds error to let them score. And that’s exactly what happened.

Ethan Clark-Wood couldn’t hold onto a loose ball, and Smith reacted quickest to add his second of the evening – all-but securing the win for his side in the process.

This proved the final nail in the coffin, as Catalans held onto an 11-0 win.

What

Well, that was 80 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

This game was just devoid of any genuine quality, from both sides. This was emphasised emphatically by the first-half. Connor spilled the ball when the tryline was at his mercy, Catalans couldn’t score for love nor money and the only points of the half came from a drop-goal in the final play. The second-half wasn’t much better, either, despite seeing a couple of scores.

For all the entertainment this weekend, and the Halo effect of the Las Vegas festival of rugby league, this was probably the worst advert rugby league could have given itself.

The curse of Stade Gilbert Brutus

The Stade Gilbert Brutus is not a happy hunting ground for Leeds, and their woes continued tonight with another shocking display.

Leeds are now scoreless in their past three visits to Perpignan, posting an aggregate score of 98-0 as a result, but tonight was potentially the worst of the lot.

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The Rhinos were just shambolic at times tonight, and when Catalans got their first score of the evening Leeds never looked like winning. Nothing seemed to come off for them.

Is there something about the ground? Whatever it is, Leeds just do not seem to play well in Perpignan.

Woeful attack, but a glimmer of hope for Les Dracs?

It’s already been heavily discussed, but the Les Dracs’ attack was once again woeful, to the point it looked like they wouldn’t even score in a game of unopposed for large parts of the game.

For all the French flair players like Theo Fages, Ben Garcia, Arthur Mourgue and Matthieu Laguerre have brought in previous years, for all the flashy skills Tommy Makinson, Reimis Smith,  Nick Cotric and Luke Keary have demonstrated in the past and even with the directness of Julien Bousquet and Tevita Pangai JR giving them consistent front-foot ball, Les Dracs just look devoid of any genuine ideas to cross the whitewash.

Catalans have proved time and time again they can play some spellbinding rugby league, and this new-look group looked – on paper at least – that it could be capable of taking things up another gear, but it just hasn’t materialised.

Catalans dominated much of the opening 20 minutes, spending a large part of that camped in Leeds’ 10 metre area, but for love nor money could they break through the defence. Everything was just so easy to manage.

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The worst thing about it is Leeds didn’t really need to try to hold them out. Leeds didn’t look stretched at any point in that period and even with the repeated defensive efforts didn’t even look massively tired.

But, in saying that, Smith’s first effort and later the introduction of Alrix da Costa did seem to release them from their shackles.

Da Costa’s work around the ruck just added a new dynamic to their attack, and crucially added consistent clean ball out of dummy half. In turn, that brought Fages into the game more, and it was his kicking game that ended up leading to their scores.

This intelligent play shows they can now build a platform to kick on from. Prior to this game, they had only scored six tries in four competitive games, but now they should have some fresh confidence that they can get over the whitewash and that should give them a proper foundation to build a system that works for them.

Steve McNamara will certainly be pleased with that.

Same old, same old

Arthur has been frustrated at his side’s ill-discipline and error count so far this season, and unfortunately, that trend continued tonight.

As mentioned above, Catalans were camped within Leeds’ 10-metre for large parts of the first-half, but that came as a direct result of Leeds’ shoddy discipline. To rub salt into the wounds, Connor copped a cheap yellow.

On top of this, repeated handling errors just compounded their misery. Catalans’ two tries came directly from Leeds’ mistakes, with Newman and Clark-Wood punished, and plenty of their chances came courtesy of some schoolboy stuff from the visitors.

Arthur mentioned it following their victory over Castleford and even in the pre-match press conferene that he felt his side didn’t respect the ball enough, and that was clear to see tonight. Just imagine what the reaction will be to this if he was furious with the 20 minute episode against the Fords…

Leeds want to kick on this year, and their performances in this early part of the season show they are much-improved from the previous two campaigns, but these lapses in discipline and simple errors are something the best teams in the competition can’t afford with the margins so tight between them all. They need to fix this sooner rather than later.

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