Giants fall short at the death in France

Huddersfield Giants (4) 12

Tries: McQueen, Levi

Goals: Russell, Pryce

Drop-Goals:

Catalans Dragons (4) 13

Tries: Romano, Jullien

Goals: Tomkins (2)

Drop-Goals: Tomkins

Huddersfield Giants: Pryce, I. Senior, Cudjoe, King, Golding; Fages, Russell; Greenwood, Levi, Trout; McQueen, Jones, Yates

Interchange: Hewitt, English, Wilson, Lawrence

Catalans Dragons: Tomkins; Laguerre, Langi, Whare, Romano; Pearce, Drinkwater; Dudson, Da Costa, Seguier; Jullien, Chan, Garcia

Interchange: Mourgue, Goudemand, Cozza, Kasiano

Huddersfield Giants fell short at the death, denied by a Sam Tomkins drop-goal in the South of France, winning 13-12 at the Stade Gilbert Brutus in the Betfred Super League. 

The Giants got off to a perfect start, scoring as Chris McQueen pounced on an error from Samisoni Langi to score after just six minutes and continued to threaten the home sides line, with Josh Jones nearly doubling the Giants lead after 10 minutes. 

In a tense first half, there were a number of opportunities for the home side that could have profited from, dropping the ball twice over the line and having Laguerre held up from a tremendous Ashton Golding tackle, but the Dragons finally opened their account through Arthur Romano, who scored immediately after the Giants had held Laguerre up. Sam Tomkins pulled the conversion wide, and the sides remained level at the break, four points apiece. 

The home side would take the lead after three second half minutes, as Benjamin Jullien broke through the Giants defence to score, despite a valiant effort from Chris McQueen, Sam Tomkins would make no mistake on his second conversion attempt, and the home side's lead early in the second stanza stood at six. 

Huddersfield would wait to level the scores, as the home side continued to punish themselves with error, but a magnificent ball from Theo Fages put Chris McQueen through the gap, and the back-rower set up Danny Levi to score under the posts. Russell converted, and we were level. It got better two minutes later, as a penalty allowed Will Pryce to put the Giants ahead for the second time in the game, from thirty metres out. 

With five remaining on the clock, a high tackle would provide the second opportunity of the game for the two sides to engage in a kerfuffle, but more importantly for the Giants, it would allow the Dragons to take a shot at goal, which Sam Tomkins would take to level the game. 

The game would remain level until a minute from time, as Sam Tomkins would slot over a drop goal to win the game for the home side.