Catalans claim Golden Point win over Wakefield

Betfred Super League

Catalans (8) 24

Tries: Garcia, Satae, Cotric, Smith Goals: Aispuro-Bichet 4.

Wakefield (18) 20

Tries: Jowitt, Hood, Griffin Goals: Jowitt 4.

Catalans Dragons picked up a 24-20 Golden Point victory in a terrific encounter against Wakefield Trinity at the Stade Gilbert Brutus.

Reimis Smith's try two minutes into extra-time earned the hosts a stunning comeback win after they trailed by 10 points at half-time and extended the French side's winning run against Wakefield in all competitions to 14 matches.

Tries from Benjamin Garcia, Chris Satae and Nick Cotric - along with four kicks from fullback Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet - had given the hosts a two-point lead with just moments of the match remaining.

But Max Jowitt - who had scored one of three first-half tries for Wakefield, the others from Liam Hood and Josh Griffin - veleled with his fourth successful kick to take the match to Golden Point.

Catalans move up a place to seventh in Super League while Wakefield stay ninth.

Catalans Dragons Reimis Smith's try two minutes into Golden Point gave the hosts a thrilling victory

Following a stop-start opening 10 minutes, a wonderful offload from Wakefield centre Griffin found Jowitt who contorted himself superbly to open the scoring.

After a successful captain's challenge saw Trinity turn over the ball, Caleb Hamlin-Uele powerfully handed off four Catalans players before offloading to Hood who dived over under the sticks to help put the visitors 12 points clear after 25 minutes.

Just past the half-hour mark, Catalans got on the board when captain Garcia found a gap to the right of Jowitt to drive himself over for his first try of the Super League season.

With both teams reduced to 12 men for high tackles within 60 seconds of each other, Wakefield produced the try of the match when a powerful run from Caius Faatili offset Mason Lino whose beautiful offload from the back of his hand found Renouf Atoni to set up Griffin to dot down his first of the season.

Wakefield full-back Max Jowitt scored 12 points in an impressive personal display

Three minutes into the second-half, wonderful scrambling defending from Jowitt momentarily stopped Romain Navarrete from diving over under the sticks but the ball was quickly recycled to Satae, who pirouetted to create space and score his second Super League try in as many games.

Matthieu Laguerre thought he had the hosts level when he held off a challenge from Jowitt to dive in at the corner but his foot was correctly ruled to be in touch by on-field referee Liam Moore.

With over eight minutes left, Cotric shook off Lino to score his first Super League try for the club in the left corner before Aispuro-Bichet's terrific kick gave the hosts the lead for the first time in the match.

With two minutes remaining, Wakefield earned a penalty for an offside infringement and Jowitt nervelessly slotted the ball through the posts to make the match all square and after Lino missed a chance to repeat his drop-goal heroics of last week, the match went to Golden Point.

Lino was sent to the sin-bin for a high shot on the impressive Aispuro-Bichet 60 seconds after the re-start and the hosts wasted no time in making their man advantage count when Smith burst through to dive over for the match-winning moment.

Catalans Dragons coach Steve McNamara said:

"I thought we played soft in the first-half, we started poor, our defence was poor and Wakefield played at a faster speed than we did.

"Credit to us, we managed to turn that around and reverse that in the second-half but we gave ourselves a lot to do.

"It was smart from Luke Keary to set up for a drop goal but he obviously spoke to Reimis Smith about running on the inside if the pressure came and he found his way to the tryline with a spectacular finish.

"I thought we deserved to win, Wakefield were better than us in the first-half but we dominated the second.

Wakefield Trinity coach Daryl Powell said:

"I thought we were great in the first-half and pretty poor in the second.

"Catalans put their foot down after the break and I expected them to come out and fight like they did and then to concede a try in the first five minutes, we needed to regain control of the game and we couldn't do it."

On Mason Lino's sin-bin which led to the match-winning try:

"It was a poor decision by Mason but he knows that.

"We don't need to tell him and then you're always going to have poor kick-pressure and they were pretty smart how they took the opportunity."

Catalans: Aispuro-Bichet; Makinson, Laguerre, Smith, Cotric; Keary, Fages; Pangai Jr, Garcia, Bousquet, Sims, Whitehead, Partington.

Interchanges: Da Costa, Satae, Navarrete, Sironen.

Sin-bin: Keary (35).

Wakefield: Rourke; Scott, Hall, Pratt, Johnstone; Jowitt, Lino; McMeeken, Hood, Hamlin-Uele, Vagana, Griffin, Pitts.

Interchanges: Atoni, Cozza, Smith, Faatili.

Sin-bin: Vagana (36), Lino (81)

Referee: Aaron Moore.