Dragons seal rare home win

Dureau: Instrumental in Catalan win

Catalan Dragons claimed just their second home victory in 13 months after running in five tries to two in a 28-10 win over Hull.

In-form Dragons followed up away wins to Warrington and Wigan with an impressive performance in front of their own fans.

Steve Menzies lit up the Stade Gilbert Brutus with a stunning length-of-the-field effort to secure Dragons' fourth touchdown, while there were also scores from Jean-Phillipe Baile, Damien Blanch, Frederic Vaccari and Ian Henderson.

Hull's Tom Briscoe opened the scoring and Sam Obst also went over, while Scott Dureau outkicked Craig Fitzgibbon four goals to one.

Dragons started brighter and launched an attack just two minutes in when a cross-field Dureau kick was juggled and knocked on by Sebastien Raguin.

A knock-on by Remi Casty on his own 40-metre line gave Hull a chance to attack down the left and a neat kick allowed Briscoe to out-pace Blanch and touch down for the opening score.

However, Danny Tickle failed to convert the try from the touchline.

Lead

Dragons took the lead when another surge involving the outstanding Ben Farrar saw his short ball put Baile through a hole in the Hull defence, with the French centre making Dureau's conversion straightforward.

From the kick-off, Menzies released Setaimata Sa to break down field and draw the full-back before passing to the supporting Blanch who went the remaining 40 metres to score to the right of the posts. Again, Dureau converted.

With Catalan looking to press home their advantage a poor offload from Eloi Pelissier found its way into the hands of Obst, who raced in from 30 metres.

Fitzgibbon added the extras. Barely six minutes of the second half had passed when a loose ball was collected by Baile, who handed the ball on to the supporting Vaccari for a third try.

It left another simple conversion for Dureau, who duly made the score 18-10 and it was Catalan who closed the game out and in decisive fashion.

First, Menzies picked up the ball on his own 10-metre line and raced the length of the field to touch down in the corner, then Dureau succeeded with his toughest kick of the day.

From the restart, Hull failed to kick the ball 10 metres and from the resulting penalty Henderson tapped the ball to himself and scooted over to add the gloss.

Dureau responded with his first miss of the night but the job was already done.