Rhinos left to rue Mourgue
LEEDS were beaten by Super League leaders Catalans for the second time in seven days.
And the Dragons had to relight their fire at half-time in this hot and cold performance in Perpignan, recovering from a 16-point deficit to run out winners.
It was “Awesome Arthur” Mourgue (below) who did the damage as he stood in for suspended playmaker James Maloney.
Catalans coach Steve Mcnamara said the young French half-back was a star in the making.
He said: “Arthur was awesome, he’s readymade to shine in games like these.”
The Dragons had won eight on the bounce and were expected to celebrate a long-awaited homecoming in front of fans for the first time in over 15 months.
But nobody told the Rhinos who put on a stunning early blitz led by scrum-half Luke Gale and former Dragon Richie Myler.
Catalans went ahead early with a Mourgue penalty but Tom Briscoe hit back with two tries before a brilliant passage of play orchestrated by Gale and Brad Dwyer saw the impressive Kruise Leeming put the Rhinos 18-2 in front.
Catalans, who were also without second row Joel Tomkins, relied on Mourgue to rescue them.
Giant prop Sam Kasiano burst through to touch down from short range then Sam Tomkins put Mourgue in between the posts, converting his own try to reduce the gap to four points.
A delayed pass by Josh Drinkwater then put Matt Whitley hurtling over and Mourgue’s conversion put Catalans two points ahead for the second time.
A try from Tom Davies sealed victory before Tomkins added a drop goal.
Leeds coach Richard Agar said: “We had a terrible start to that second half.
“We had a complete loss of discipline and composure. “Once we lost our momentum we couldn’t get it back.
“When you’re at 50 per cent ball completion and conceding back-to-back tries it’s going to be difficult.
“We had a lot of players trying very hard but in certain areas there were some really poor performances.
“We’re not using travel or weather conditions as excuses – Catalans travel an awful lot more than we do and they seem to be doing alright with it.
“It seems we haven’t learned some lessons from last week.”