Dragons v Bradford match report


 
 

Catalans Dragons (18) 46
T : Morgan Escaré 2, Elliott Whitehead, Michael Oldfield, Mickael Simon, Daryl Millard, Leon Pryce, Zeb Taia
: Thomas Bosc 7

Bradford Bulls (0) 4
T : Jamie Foster
G :

 

Catalans Dragons moved into the top eight temporarily with a convincing home victory over the Bradford Bulls.

With loanee’s Antonio Kaufusi and Joe Arundel in their starting line-up, the Bulls were hoping to bounce back from a confidence crushing defeat to Huddersfield at last weeks Magic Weekend.

Catalans opened the scoring in the first minute of the game, Zeb Taia’s neat footwork then offload inside to Morgan Escare set the young Frenchman clear. Escare then had the confidence to take on the full-back Lee Gaskell on the outside and beat him for pace to touchdown for an eighty metre try. Thomas Bosc added the conversion.

Ten minutes later and the Dragons doubled their lead, Bosc’s towering bomb was allowed to bounce by Gaskell and Jamie Foster and was collected by former Bradford man, Elliott Whitehead who shrugged off Foster’s attempted tackle and powered over to score. Bosc again converted.

From the restart, Michael Oldfield collected the ball, evaded Danny Addy and Adrian Purtell and raced the full length of the field to score close to the posts. Bosc again converted to see the hosts scoring at better than a point per minute.

As both sides’ fatigued under the south of france heat, so the quality levels went down and neither side could add to the score before the break.

Catalans started the second half as they did the first, scoring the first time they had possession. The ball was sent to the right and Ben Pomeroy offloaded inside to the supporting Escare who raced over to the right of the posts. Bosc adding the simple conversion.

Mickael Simon was the next to profit from the Bulls’ woeful defence, Leon Pryce stepping and creating space and offloading to Bosc whose flat pass to Simon saw the French prop score under the posts, allowing Bosc to easily convert again to take the scores to 30-0.

With Catalans looking to whitewash the Bulls, Jamie Foster didn’t read the script, Jamie Foster latching onto Gaskell’s pass after slick passing from Danny Addy and Purtell. Foster failed to add the conversion from tight on the touchline.

Three minutes later Catalans scored the try of the game. Pryce broke clear before offloading to Taia and despite the Bulls’ players hauling down Taia he managed to offload to Jean-Philippe Baile who put in a superb kick to the left corner which was collected by Daryl Millard who tip-toed down the touchline to score in the corner. Bosc missed the conversion to see the scores remain at 34-4.

Just after the hour mark, Leon Pryce created and scored himself against his former team to extend the Catalan lead further. Pryce made two run around plays, the first with Jeff Lima, the second with Whitehead that created the space for him to get close to the line before reaching out to touch down. Bosc added the conversion.

With three minutes remaining, Catalans completed the scoring after a smart short side drive by Whitehead gave them field position, Bosc then chipped to the left edge and Zeb Taia collected the ball and raced around under the posts to score. Bosc added the simple conversion to take the full time score to 46-4.