JUSTIN MURPHY thought he had got there first, but the centre was more than happy to let his team-mate, Julien Rinaldi, take the credit for the score that sealed a famous 38-30 opening victory in the Engage Super League for Catalans Dragons.
The try, which came in the closing seconds of a richly entertaining match on Saturday, was not the prettiest, yet few people in a euphoric Perpignan crowd of more than 10,000 people cared about the nationality of the scorer.
Stacey Jones, the New Zealand scrum half, had created the opportunity for Rinaldi, the France international, and Murphy to claim the glory, but all agreed that the result was a triumph for the fiercely proud Catalan region.
“That was just awesome, it could not have gone any better,” Murphy, a former New Zealand Warriors centre who played a starring role with the Dragons’ forebears, Union Treiziste Catalane, in the French Grand Final last season, said. “We’ve been building up towards this for a couple of years but there are a lot of Catalan people out there who have dreamt of this moment for a long time.”
The Catalans were heading for what would have been a cruel defeat when Pat Richards, Wigan’s debutant Australian threequarter, scored a fifth try for the visiting team on 70 minutes. Danny Tickle’s conversion and a penalty goal opened up a four-point lead.
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However, a rousing rendition of the Catalan anthem from the 8,000 locals brought the stadium to life and provided a dramatic lift for the Super League newcomers, who rose to the occasion to snatch the win with tries by Ian Hindmarsh and Rinaldi.
The result was a bitter disappointment for Wigan, who had flown to the South of France hungry for a victory that would have gone a long way towards burying the pain of last season, when they missed out on the play-offs.
Their misery was compounded by the fact that they had ample opportunity to deny the Dragons and would have done so had not Sean O’Loughlin and Danny Orr lost the ball in the act of scoring, let-offs that their opponents duly punished.
Asked if he thought other English sides would struggle in France, Ian Millward, the Wigan coach, retorted angrily — “I don’t give a s*** about other sides” — but Maurice Lindsay, his chairman, was more diplomatic.
“It’s a great tribute to the Catalans Dragons that they looked like a side who have never been out of Super League. They were very professional and if they continue in this kind of form and maintain such high standards they’ll be a very difficult team to beat,” Lindsay said.
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The main difference between Paris Saint-Germain, the last French side to feature in the Super League before folding after two seasons, and the Catalans is that the side which beat Wigan are based in the French rugby heartland.
With Jones dictating play alongside the impressive Sean Rudder, the former Castleford stand-off, the Dragons were more than a match for Wigan. They scored seven tries to the visiting team’s five, two of which came while the Catalans were a man down with Jamal Fakir in the sin-bin for persistent high tackling, and played with a cohesiveness that belied their status as a team playing their first competitive match.