Super League: Steve McNamara annoyed by Catalans Dragons' three sin-binnings against Huddersfield Giants
Catalans put Huddersfield to the sword with a 50-12 win in Super League, but had three players sent to the sin-bin. "I don't think we have an issue long term, but tonight we put ourselves under pressure after some stupid decisions on the back of being warned," the head coach said
Thursday 1 July 2021 23:05, UK
Steve McNamara insists Catalans Dragons do not have disciplinary problems but he accused them of "stupidity" after having three players sin-binned during their 50-12 win over Huddersfield Giants.
Stand-off James Maloney scored 22 points as the Super League leaders ran in eight tries to two to extend their winning run in the league to seven matches.
McNamara was delighted with the ease with which they carved out a 10th win of the season, seven of which have come on English soil, but unhappy over the yellow cards handed out to Jason Baitieri, Josh Drinkwater and Gil Dudson.
Baitieri was sin-binned in the first half following persistent team infringements and the Catalans ended the game with 11 men after Drinkwater and Dudson saw yellow over separate incidents.
"I'm clearly not happy with having players in the sin bin, we need to have a look at that," Dragons head coach McNamara said. "I don't think we have a discipline issue. We got warned and didn't heed the warnings, so it was a little bit of stupidity.
"I don't think we have an issue long term, but tonight we put ourselves under pressure after some stupid decisions on the back of being warned. But the movement in defence was great, even when we were down to 11 men.
"I was a little bit critical the last two weeks because I didn't think we had an edge and we challenged the group to get back to something like normal. I thought we were back to normal in defence and we scored some nice tries. Our halves are playing in sync at the minute and I thought Ben Garcia did a great job as a hooker."
It was a fourth successive defeat for the injury-hit Giants, who handed a debut to Will Pryce, the 18-year-old son of former Great Britain stand-off Leon Pryce, in the absence of three first-choice half-backs.
The youngster was introduced after 62 minutes and made an immediate impact, slipping the ball out of a tackle for centre Jake Wardle to score Huddersfield's second try.
"I thought Will was really good," Giants head coach Ian Watson said. "He came on and was chattering away, he was being Will. He just went out there to play rugby.
"We wanted him to get his hands on the ball and be a threat and he did that. I just wish we could have got a result and made it a memorable debut, but I'm sure he'll have many more appearances."
Watson was naturally unhappy with the overall result though after what he felt was a solid start to the game from his patched-up team and questioned whether they paid the table-toppers too much respect.
"I thought we started well in a way, but we were a little bit soft in defence," Watson said. "For the first 20 minutes we were in an arm wrestle.
"It took us a while to start moving the ball and when we did our defence started to go soft so it's a balancing act. Perhaps because we were playing Catalans and they are top of the table, we probably respected them a little too much.
"I am disappointed with the result, but there were some individuals who stood up and played big minutes. If you look at our spine, it's decimated, and we've got to find a way to get a bit of continuity in that spine and go forward with it."
