Steve McNamara explains how this cost his side the game against Leeds Rhinos

After his Catalans Dragons side were beaten for the first time this season despite leading 22-8 at halftime against Leeds Rhinos, Steve McNamara called for a response from his side.

“It’s a response every week, it’s not just responding because you lost the game. It’s not just about going in Monday and preparing for the next game, that’s on a weekly basis whether you’ve won, lost or drawn,” he said.

“Going from the situation of the start of that game and then missing a couple of opportunities, it sticks a little bit more.

“But it’s the same thing. We’ve just got to get ourselves back to France and get ready to again.”

He went on to explain that his side’s defence cost them the game:

“Our tackling was poor. I could tell from the first tackle of the second half, we didn’t make a strong tackle on that and it snowballed from that.

“So our tackling was really really poor, we lost the speed of the ruck. Leeds were a bit more direct and held the ball a lot better than in the first half.

“They had a wealth of possession on the back of good ruck speed, it’s pretty simply. We were on the back foot and when we had it we didn’t challenge them enough with it, so it was double sided on that point.”