An injury ravaged Rhinos side battled hard in the heat in Perpignan but lost out to a strong Catalans outfit conceding four tries without reply from the home side.  

Rohan Smith was without nine first team players for the trip to the South of France with youngsters Jack Smith and Alfie Edgell getting their chance to impress. 

Leeds started the game with great intent on defence as they came out fired up in the heat in Perpignan. The early stages of the game failed to get into any sort of flow with errors from both teams with Jack Sinfield creating a half chance for the visitors with a dummy and break. 

However, it was Catalans who took the lead after 15 minutes when quick hands across the backline after an error from the Rhinos put Tom Davies in space to score in the corner. Arthur Mourgue added the conversion to give his side a 6-0 lead. 

Back to back penalties against the Rhinos handed Catalans the chance to extend their lead and Mourgue kicked the simple penalty to make 8-0 after 19 minutes. 

Catalans had the chance to extend their lead when Chris Satae spilled the ball with the line at his mercy after a challenge from Mikolaj Oledzki on the prop as he looked certain to score. 

Leeds were grateful for a smart piece of defence from Ash Handley as he tackled Mourgue at dummy half just inside the Catalans half to give the Rhinos a chance to attack with ten minutes to go until half time. The visitors got their reward when Sinfield’s grubber on the last, matched by the chase from Martin, Miller and Goudemand, trapped Davies behind his own try line. Abdull’s short drop out did not go ten and Leeds had a penalty 10 metres from the Dragons line. But the chance went down when the short pass to Roberts went down and it remained 8-0 at half time.

The Rhinos withstood some early pressure from Catalans at the start of the second half when Ash Handley was trapped behind his try line but good pressure on defence forced an error from the Dragons as they tried to put Johnstone over out wide. 

Leeds enjoyed their best spell of pressure in the game after that with good work from Handley taking his team up field. Leeds had  a scrum 30 metres from the Dragons line after an offload by Rhyse Martin was knocked down but on the first tackle, Sinfield pass went behind the runner and Johnstone picked up the loose ball and ran 70 metres to score his side’s second try of the game. Mourgue added the conversion to make it 14-0 after 55 minutes. 

Leeds continued to battle hard but were unable to find a way through the resolute Catalans defence. Unfortunately for the Rhinos, the scoreline blew out in the final five minutes. The Dragons wrapped up the win with three minutes to go when Mourgue stepped cut the defence before side stepping Miller to score between the posts. Then with the final play of the game Da Costa was awarded a try by the video referee. The on field decision was Try which seemed to be crucial with replays suggesting the replacement hooker had lost his grip on the ball as he reached out to score. Mourge converted both tries to make the final score 26-0.