Super League: Castleford coach Daryl Powell praises Justin Carney

Justin Carney scored a hat-trick of tries to help the hosts ease to a 32-6 triumph over their French opponents at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle on Sunday.

The result means the Tigers are now tied at the top of the Super League table on four points, having opened their season with an away win at Bradford. They actually sit at the summit on points difference, two ahead of St Helens.

"We've shown we've got a little bit of something about us," Powell said.

"Obviously defensively today we've got to be happy with conceding six points against a team that have been outstanding over the last few years in Super League. And we've scored over 30 points in our first two games.

"There's quite a few people who doubted we'd be able to score points after what we've recruited and what we've lost, and I think we've sort of answered a few of those questions today.

"I'm pretty pleased with the overall effort but there's still loads of improvement in us as well. We're not going to fall in love with ourselves too much but there are some good signs there."

Handful

Powell picked out Carney for special praise, the Australian having touched down twice in the first half before going on to complete his treble just a minute from time.

"You are better having him on your side than the other side," Powell said. "He's certainly a handful.

"You want to give him as much space as you can and he got some space today. But there were other times when he didn't have much space and he made things happen, and that's Justin Carney.

"He's a difficult player to handle, no question about that."

Defeat means the Dragons return to Perpignan still in search of their first point in 2014 - and coach Laurent Frayssinous pulled no punches when assessing their performance against Castleford.

"It's embarrassing the desire the players put on the field today. Cas were too good for us," said Frayssinous.

"Defensively that's too many tries in two games for me.

"I was not really surprised by Castleford's performance. I was more surprised by our very poor performance. I didn't expect a performance like that."

He also wasn't too happy with the officials either, adding: "We were not rewarded by the ref (Tim Roby). We were always being penalised. I think the ruck was too slow - it became a defensive game, not an offensive game."