McNamara hails 'well deserved' Dragons win

Former NRL player Josh Drinkwater made his debut for Catalans Dragons in a nail-biting 25-24 win over Hull in Perpignan.

Catalans Dragons head coach Steve McNamara has hailed a "well deserved" win which lifted his side off the foot of the Super League table.

Tony Gigot's close-range drop goal earned Catalans an impressive 25-24 victory over Hull in Perpignan.

The sides traded penalties - and blows - inside the last 10 minutes, with both desperate to find the correct field position from which to tee up a drop goal.

"It was a real rollercoaster of a game, so many events and swings of momentum," McNamara said.

"I thought we got what we deserved, I thought we deserved the win tonight and it's been a tough period for us and to get one of the big scalps like Hull at home is great for the club.

"It was a big reaction from the players tonight, last time we played here we threw away a 21-point lead away against Wigan and we didn't get a good reaction from the players when we went to Castleford and York so we were looking for a reaction today and we got that tonight.

"The players have worked extremely hard for this and it's nice for us to go into our next game with the two points in the bag."

Former fringe NRL playmaker Josh Drinkwater made his debut for the Dragons against Hull and McNamara was delighted that his selection paid off.

"It was a gamble, he played really, really well for us tonight, he's clearly not fit, he's jetlagged but his contribution, particularly in attack, was really good." McNamara added.

"When David Mead got injured, it put an enormous strain on the team, and Ben Garcia did an amazing job for us, he's played centre, hooker, second row and loose forward for us.

"He's played 80 minutes and he's rolled into different positions. But we took the gamble with the bigger bench and thankfully that worked for us."


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Source: AAP



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