Brodie Croft hat-trick sees Leeds Rhinos hit cruise control at Catalans

Harry Newman and Lachie Miller also touched down and Jake Connor converted four of the five tries to give Leeds a comfortable victory. The Rhinos had not scored a try in Perpignan since 2022 going into the match but needed only nine minutes to rectify that as Newman scooped up a loose ball to cross the line. Leeds then came under pressure at the other end but James McDonnell and Newman made key interventions to avert the danger. Leeds doubled their lead in the 20th minute when McDonnell forced Lewis Dodd into conceding possession and Croft made the Dragons pay. An excellent break from Jarrod O’Connor brought Leeds their third try just before half-time as he laid the ball off for Miller to go under the posts for a 16-0 lead. Croft ran in two more scores in the second half, the second with an excellent burst of speed in the 67th minute, and the hosts fell apart as they were repeatedly penalised for dissent. But they did avoid being blanked as Ugo Tison crossed in the corner in the 79th minute, with Toby Sexton kicking the conversion as the hooter sounded. Leeds coach Brad Arthur said: “I think we’ve been building with our away performances. We made a change four or five weeks ago to our mentality and our prep and the boys have bought in. “I was really happy with the start to the second half. It boiled over a little bit but we didn’t lose our heads, we calmed down and we did what we needed to do. We wanted to come and dominate possession and we did that really well.”