Friday 21st March 08

Catalans Dragons coach Mick Potter was pleased with the resilience shown by his side after Gregory Mounis’ late try snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against Harlequins RL.

The visitors trailed Quins 18-6 at the break, but second-half tries from Dimitri Pelo, Dane Carlaw and Mounis plus three conversions from Thomas Bosc stunned the hosts and gave the Dragons a 24-22 victory.

And Potter, who has seen his side lose close encounters with Hull KR and Bradford Bulls already this season, was thrilled with the way his players held the lead on they had got themselves ahead.

“In the past we wouldn’t have won that type of game so to not frivolously throw away an away win is big for us,” Potter said.

“After losing to Bradford and Hull KR in close games it was really important to grind out these two points and this will give us a lot of confidence.

“I didn’t say anything major at half-time because I thought we could get ourselves back into the match – I believed it wasn’t too big a hill for us to climb.

“We just had to make some minor adjustments and that’s what we did and they worked perfectly.”

But Quins’ second defeat on the trot was hard to take for coach Brian McDermott, who saw loose-forward Henry Paul crucially miss four of his five conversions.

Australian centre David Howell helped himself to a hat-trick of tries while Paul and forward Matt Gafa also touched down.

But McDermott was disappointed his side were unable to up the tempo despite holding the advantage at the break.

“Catalans raised their game in the second-half and we fell off ours - we lost structure on offence and defence and that cost us,” he said.

“Catalans’ intensity was higher than ours in the second half and they asked more questions of us in attack.

“A team like Catalans will fight you to the death as we’ve seen here but there were positives.

“In the first half I thought we were very good and defended really well, especially near our own line and played exactly how we wanted.

“I was really impressed with David Howell – his tries were all smart finishes, he showed strength and a great deal of awareness.”