Catalans Dragons 22 Crusaders 26: Catalans warned to improve or suffer semi-final thrashing

Catalans Dragons coach Kevin Walters claimed his side are in for a hefty defeat in their Carnegie Challenge Cup semi-final if they put on as woeful a display as they did in their loss to Crusaders.

Tries from Weller Hauraki, Jason Chan, Rhys Hanbury and Peter Lupton, all converted by Clinton Schifcofske, who also kicked a penalty, gave Crusaders a 26-22 victory at Stade Gilbert Brutus.

Two tries from Clint Greenshields and one from Remi Casty was the French reply while Thomas Bosc booted three conversions and two penalties and Walters will demand much more on cup duty against Warrington on August 8.

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"I'm a bit over the semi-final to be honest," he said. "Everyone keeps talking about it. We might as well not even show up if we're going to play like that – it'll be 70 or 80 (points)."

Walters felt embarrassed with his team's performance, which saw them surrender a two-point lead with six minutes to go after Crusaders successfully recovered a short kick-off which led to Lupton's winning score.

"I'm really disappointed for the Catalans fans who showed up here tonight," he added. "If we had Crusaders' will or desire then we would have won that game today. They out-enthused us and the game meant more to them than it did to us and that was very disappointing."

The Dragons lost Greenshields at half-time to a hamstring injury but Walters said that that was not a deciding factor.

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"It's not a major injury for him," said Walters. "He felt a bit of a twinge in his hamstring but that didn't really affect the outcome of the match.

"I thought that even in the first half, we bombed a lot of opportunities that were schoolboy errors.

"Considering that they're professional athletes it's not amusing, it's embarrassing."

Crusaders coach Brian Noble felt his side justly won a contest that kept fans on the edge of their seats for the whole 80 minutes.

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"I thought we were deserved winners," he said. "We've been improving over the last couple of weeks and some of our game improved where we needed to improve. We've prepared well and we've practised well all week."

Catalans Dragons: Greenshields, Bell, Raguin, Carlaw, Stacul, Bosc, Sherwin, Johnson, Elima, Mounis, Guisset, McGuire, Casty. Substitutes: Fakir, Simon, Gigot, Gossard.

Crusaders: Schifcofske, Youngquest, Martin, Mellars, Dyer, Hanbury, Sammut, Lupton, Hauraki, Chan, Bryant, Withers, Peek. Substitutes: Lee, James, Winternstein, Trimarchi.

Referee: T Alibert (Toulouse).

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