Travelling Leeds fully expecting tough test at Catalan

The French club have endured a difficult start to the season, losing 36-34 at Hull FC and then – in the words of their coach Laurent Frayssinous – being “embarrassed” 32-6 at Castleford on Sunday.

With poor discipline seeing two forwards banned and a host of influential players also missing through injury, few expect them to rise from their slump in Perpignan this evening.

However, McDermott has seen his Leeds side embattled in some fierce contests over there in the past and is adamant their hosts will give a better account.

“We will plan for a very good Catalans,” he said. “We are not banking on them being as scratchy as they probably were against Castleford.

“We will plan for a flowing Catalans, with their forwards being very uncompromising to play against.

“It is a tough place to play. They play really well at home and I am sure they will be emotionally charged, because they’ve lost their first two.

“I think their last two results will make them more dangerous.

“They have been a quality team for the last three or so seasons now, longer than that if you start talking about Mick Potter’s time in charge.

“With the fact they are not where they need to be I think they will be incredibly focused and really tough to play at their place.”

Leeds have so far picked up two early wins, at Hull KR and against Warrington Wolves a week ago.

Scrum-half Danny McGuire makes his 350th career appearance tonight and may have to take on added responsibilities if captain Kevin Sinfield fails to shake off the ankle injury suffered at Headingley last Friday.

Teenager Liam Sutcliffe is ready to step in if needed, while McDermott insists there is still plenty more to come from his side.

“I didn’t think we were great against Warrington last week,” he said.

“I didn’t think Warrington were particularly that good.

“They will massively improve and we can’t be thinking because we beat Warrington we are where we need to be. We have still got a fair few areas we need to get right ourselves yet.”

n Big-spending Salford were given a reality check as St Helens maintained their perfect start to the season with a 38-0 rout at the AJ Bell Stadium.

Back-to-back wins in their opening two games had given Marwan Koukash’s expensively-assembled team a chance to go top of the table for the first time in the summer era.

But it was fairly routine for Saints as Australian scrum-half Luke Walsh followed up his 18-point haul on debut a fortnight earlier with another 18 from seven goals and one of his side’s six tries.

Other tries came from Mark Percial (2), Jon Wilkin, Kyle Amor and Anthony Laffranchi.