McDermott rues 'soft' defence as Leeds lose again

Leeds coach Brian McDermott rued "soft" defensive play as his team's early-season problems increased with a 32-28 loss to Catalans Dragons in Perpignan.

Two tries from Dave Taylor and one each for Richie Myler, Krisnan Inu and Tony Gigot inflicted a third successive defeat on Super League's defending champions.

The Rhinos scored five tries of their own on the day, but poor defence allowed Catalans to mount a heavy early lead which proved too much for the visitors to overcome.

McDermott said: "We had too many periods where we were loose and defensively too many soft periods in the early stages, but we had a crack and had a dig.

"I've been here before where Catalans have got the momentum and we never got back into the game - I'm really pleased that the players found a way to get back into the game and effectively make it a close encounter, but I won't be consoling myself or consoling my players too much with that because we were poor in too many areas.

"We're having a tough period, a tough run at the moment. We're going through it at the moment but we've got to make sure that we keep working and keep trying to get everything out of the working week.

"We've got a working week to be as good as we can be and then come game day, give it a shot. That's all we can ask of the players at the moment - be as good as you can be."

Inu and Gigot's scores in the first five minutes of the second half put Catalans 24-8 up and McDermott identified it as the spark that took the game away from his side early.

"There were one or two periods or instances in that game which I thought defined us, and that was one of them.

"It was a lapse of concentration, while [Inu's try] came from an offload, it was a pretty soft play from us."

Kallum Watkins had scored in the first half for Leeds and he also rounded off their four-try second half - Liam Sutcliffe, Ryan Hall and Ash Handley the other men to cross - but two late missed conversions from Jordan Lilley meant it counted for nothing.

Relieved Dragons coach Laurent Frayssinous said: "I am very happy, especially in those conditions.

"There has been a lot of external pressure over the past two weeks, so winning against Leeds who wanted to come here and get the two points too, it's pretty good and satisfying."

Saluting his try-scorers, he said: "I'm very pleased with Dave. I'd like to give special praise too to Krisnan Inu, I think he played his best footie since he joined the club today. His first 40 minutes offensively and defensively were very good.

"Our right side played very good offensively and defensively in the first half - they had a lot of ball and we only conceded one try, which came from an error."

While Perpignan is, as McDermott mentioned, a stronghold for the Dragons, Frayssinous is determined to beat Wakefield away next week as the French side look to shed their reputation as poor travellers.

"We want to be consistent and we want to perform well and play well at home as well as away from [the Stade Gilbert] Brutus," he said.

"Next week will be our next test to see if we can get a win away from home. We managed to get the two points today in this test, we now have to work hard to get the two points in our next test."