McNamara praises Dragons’ tenacity

Catalans Dragons’ Head Coach Steve McNamara was left proud by his side’s tenacity as they claimed a hard-fought 36-24 victory over Wakefield Trinity in the Coral Challenge Cup.

The result moves the Dragons through to the quarter-finals where they will face the Salford Red Devils, with the venue to be announced.

Reflecting on his side’s performance, McNamara said, “I thought it was a really tough game.

“The Challenge Cup is always different. Playing the same team twice in two weeks.

“It was interesting to see how we would react after last week. We really rolled our sleeves up and worked hard.

“Wakefield were tough, tenacious and we hard to graft really hard to score our points and get the win.”

It was back-to-back wins for Catalans over Wakefield, albeit a much more different result in comparison to last week where the Dragons eased to a 58-0 win.

“Last week, it was free-flowing for us. We scored some spectacular tries. But this week, we had to dig deep and work hard,” McNamara added.

“We fought our way out of some very tough positions throughout the game.

“We wanted to win the game comfortably again but their two tries in the final five minutes were really disappointing for us, especially after the way we defended.

“However, I did like the way we kicked the ball today.

“Josh Drinkwater and James Maloney’s accuracy with the boot was important for us and I felt as though it had a big influence on the outcome of this match.”