Leigh Leopards ended Hull KR's unbeaten start with their first win since earning promotion; Steve McNamara is not getting carried away after Catalans Dragons won again; Huddersfield Giants edged out Wakefield Trinity; Liam Marshall starred as Wigan Warriors beat Castleford Tigers
Saturday 4 March 2023 11:06, UK
We round up Friday’s action in Super League as Leigh Leopards claimed their first victory since winning promotion, while Catalans Dragons, Huddersfield Giants and Wigan Warriors were all triumphant too…
Steve McNamara is determined to keep his side's feet on the floor after Catalans Dragons made it three wins from three with a resounding win over Hull FC in Perpignan.
The Dragons maintained their perfect start to the season as they went over for six tries through Tom Johnstone, Paul Seguier, Mickael Goudemand, Siua Taukeiaho, Adam Keighran and Ben Garcia.
The only response for Hull FC, who opened the season with wins over Castleford Tigers and Leeds Rhinos, came through Andre Savelio late on. Yet Catalans head coach McNamara is staying grounded.
"It's far too early to draw any conclusions but I'm very proud of our performance tonight," McNamara said. "We were very good tonight, but we won't get carried away.
"It's only Round 3. Hull are a good side, and it just didn't happen for them tonight."
Hull FC head coach Tony Smith criticised his side's "flat" performance as they suffered their first defeat of the season.
"They were good from the start, but they didn't have to be great," Smith said. "We were flat as a pancake, and they carried out their plan."
Mark Applegarth insists there is no doom and gloom at Wakefield Trinity after they went down 8-0 to Huddersfield Giants.
The result means Wakefield have yet to win a game this season and are bottom of Super League after three games.
Trinity were smashed 60-0 by Wigan Warriors last week, and failed to score a single point for the second week in a row, but Applegarth is adamant there is no panic at the relegation favourites.
"We're in Round 3 and we've played three out of last year's top four, it's not panic now," Applegarth said.
"It's not doom and gloom by any means. There's a lot of effort there and a lot of things we can work with.
"The effort and application is there, we just have to get a bit smarter in certain parts of the field. We have to put our attack together we showed against Catalans and our defence we showed tonight."
The first half ended scoreless as neither side was able to crack open the other's defence, but Joe Greenwood struck in the second half with a powerful run and Tui Lolohea nailed two goals to secure a first win of the season for Huddersfield.
"It was a tough and well-earned one," Giants head coach Ian Watson said. "We knew they were going to turn up today and play for the pride.
"For them, they've got something to work on and for us it was the nil and our defence. It was a really good arm-wrestle mentality in there. To keep teams in Super League to nil is a big ask."
Adrian Lam is adamant there is still plenty of work for his Leigh Leopards side to do despite them recording their first win of the new season away to previously unbeaten Hull Kingston Rovers.
Leigh scored five tries with Tom Briscoe and Josh Charnley claiming two each after Tom Amone had opened their account. Ben Reynolds was faultless as he added five conversions too.
However, head coach Lam warned there cannot be any let-up from his players and still saw room for improvement.
"We're still a way from where we want to be," Lam said. "We left five or six tries out on the field.
"They've been playing some good rugby and it's always difficult to come here and get a win. All we can do is focus on us and stick to our processes and our beliefs.
"We're just getting on with it and there were a lot of hard lessons to learn over the last two weeks. We're working hard to make sure our combinations come together."
Rovers' tries came from Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Mikey Lewis, James Batchelor and Jordan Abdull who also kicked a drop goal, while Will Dagger kicked four conversions, and head coach Willie Peters felt his side paid the price for not being able to see out the win from a commanding position.
"We were in front the majority of that game end never really felt comfortable," Peters said. "Credit to Leigh they really hung in there.
"Any defeat is not great but to lose that way, we hurt ourselves a lot tonight. We definitely need to close the game out better than we did."
Liam Marshall maintained his impressive start to the Super League season with a hat-trick as Wigan condemned Castleford to their third straight loss with an emphatic 36-0 win.
The homegrown Warriors winger touched down to open the scoring at the end of a tightly-contested first half and from there Matt Peet's team did not look back.
Ethan Havard added a close-range second try early in the second half before Marshall grabbed his second from long range. Toby King and Jai Field also went over for the visitors before Marshall scored his third in the last minute.
Wigan's second win from three Super League games left Castleford still to pick up any points this season, while Marshall's clinical treble took his try tally for the season to eight.
He has now scored 103 tries for Wigan, who have responded well to their opening-round defeat at Hull KR.
They thumped Wakefield 60-0 last week and did enough to see off Lee Radford's Tigers, who lost captain Paul McShane to injury early on his 200th appearance for the club.
