Castleford Tigers devastated in Perpignan after late strike from Catalans Dragons

First-half touchdowns from Paul Seguier and Arthur Mourgue for Catalans and a try for Tigers’ Jack Broadbent made it 12-6 at the break.

Jordan Turner’s try then put Castleford back in the fight and Broadbent’s second with a 70-metre break gave the visitors the lead for the first time in the match, but McMeeken’s strike five minutes from time proved to be the killer blow.

Last said: “We’re absolutely devastated. To come here to a quality side like Catalans, they are a difficult team to play against anywhere but here in Perpignan and we take them to the last couple of sets of the game…I am very proud of our players.

“After all of our effort we haven’t come away with the points and that’s what it’s all about. Our travelling support has been superb and they know the lads are trying hard.

“I did think we’d won the game when Jack Broadbent went 80 metres to score but we couldn’t quite see it out and that’s where we’re at against the best teams in the competition.

“Every single play is important and we just didn’t quite nail one or two of those plays and it came back to bite us.”

Last revealed a bout of sickness in the camp had affected his players, leaving stand-off Gareth Widdop unable to play in Perpignan.

“We had a little bit of diarrhoea in camp while we were over here,” he said. “We had to isolate one or two of them, so to come away with that type of performance is a real credit to them.”

Catalans coach Steve McNamara was more than satisfied with the result, admitting his players had been suffering from fatigue and injuries in the build-up to the game.

He said: "I'm as proud of the group as I've ever been tonight. These players have been through an extremely difficult week for a number of reasons, which I won't go into.

"We finished the game tired against Leeds and we looked tired tonight. I detest the way we played tonight, we had opportunities to put the game away from Castleford and we could have been breathing a lot easier at the end of the game.

"But we missed those chances because we were tired and we somehow managed to find a way to win it in the last few minutes."