Super League: Castleford Tigers 22-46 Catalans Dragons - Tigers suffer fourth straight loss

Sam Tomkins was one of seven different try scorers for the Dragons in their comfortable victory

Catalans Dragons won back-to-back games for the first time since March with an easy victory over Castleford Tigers.

The Dragons ran in six tries before the break thanks to Jordan Dezaria, two from Adam Keighran, Matt Ikuvalu, Tom Johnstone and Ben Garcia.

Matt Whitley and Sam Tomkins completed the scoring after the interval as the French side stay fourth.

Alex Mellor and Bureta Faraimo each crossed twice for Castleford, who lost a fourth straight game to remain 11th.

Catalans had bounced back to form with their victory over champions St Helens after three straight losses before that and they picked up where they had left off in Perpignan.

France prop Dezaria grabbed his first ever Super League try after capitalising on a loose ball to put them in front.

Keighran added the second before a second try in two games for recent NRL arrival Ikevalu had them 18-0 ahead before a quarter of the game had been played.

Mellor crossed for the Tigers, but further tries from Johnstone, his 12th of the season, Keighran and Garcia had the two points sewn up by the break with a convincing 34-6 lead.

Whitley added the first score of the second half for the visitors, before Castleford gained a bit of respectability on the scoreboard with two scores from USA winger Faraimo and a second for Mellor.

Sandwiched in between those two Faraimo tries was one from Tomkins as the Dragons enjoyed their first success on the road since March when they won at Wigan Warriors.

Although there was an injury worry as centre Keighran, who contributed 18 points with his two tries and five goals, had to go off early in the early second half with an ankle injury.

But for the Tigers, and their new assistant coach Craig Lingard who joined this week from Championship side Batley, this 10th loss in 12 Super League games was a further sign of what faces them for the rest of the season, with only Wakefield Trinity below them in the table.

Castleford Tigers head coach Andy Last said:

"I'm really disappointed with the scoreline and the result, but happy with how we responded at half-time to the challenge that I put to them.

"The game is ultimately quite gladiatorial and there is an aspect of it when you just have to run hard, tackle hard, show fight, courage and scrap.

"But in that first half we weren't prepared to do that - we wanted to play a little bit too pretty and we didn't dig our shoulders so the scoreboard started to get away from us.

"At half-time, I said I wanted a lot more and basically challenged them as men and they played as men with some heart and desire."

Catalans Dragons head coach Steve McNamara said:

"We prepared really well and were really focused after our last game against St Helens. We knew we had underperformed here in recent years so the challenge was set.

"We were a little bit slow out of the blocks in the first five minutes, but after that - and for the best part of the first 60 minutes - it was a really outstanding performance from us in most aspects.

"That's the best we have attacked all season. I thought we were really fluent and our execution was really good."

Castleford: Evalds; Faraimo, Broadbent, Mellor, Wallis; Widdop, Miller; Lawler, McShane, Massey, Milner, Griffin, Westerman.

Interchanges: Matagi, Hall, Watts, Johnson.

Catalans: Mourgue; Romano, Keighran, Ikuvalu, Johnstone; Pearce, Tomkins; McMeekin, McIlorum, Dezaria, Whitley, Seguier, Garcia.

Interchanges: Bousquet, Goudemand, Navarete, Ma'u.

Referee: Aaron Moore.

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