Steve McNamara says Catalans have ‘nobody to blame but ourselves’ for Cup loss

Correspondent
Catalans coach Steve McNamara accused his side of stopping playing as they crashed out of the Challenge Cup at the hands of Salford.

The 2018 Wembley winners raced into a 12-0 lead after 20 minutes of their quarter-final thanks to tries from Fouad Yaha and James Maloney.

They were still leading by eight points after an hour but the Red Devils struck back to level and won the game in extra time thanks to a golden-point try from Dan Sarginson.

REPORT: Catalans 18-22 Salford: Dan Sarginson wins it for Red Devils in golden point extra-time

McNamara said: “We’ve nobody to blame but ourselves. We were eight points up with 20 minutes to go and stopped playing.

“We stopped being physical, gave away a soft penalty and then a try at the end.

“We started the game reasonably well and were in control for 30 minutes but then let couple of tries in after missing one-on-one tackles.

“We gave Salford some momentum and they took that into the second half as well.”

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