Kristian Woolf disappointed with Saints late defeat by Catalans at Magic

The Dragons win more or less seals the League Leaders shield after looking second best for most of the game.

Woolf highlighted Saints’ drop in intensity when the game was in the bag as the key factor in them coming unstuck after producing a dominant first 70 minutes.

He said: “Unfortunately we dropped our intensity and stopped playing and when you do that you can leave things to chance and get your pants pulled down, and that is what happened.

“Catalans kept playing to their credit and chanced their hand a little bit and it worked for them tonight. “ Dean Whare’s try looked like a mere consolation to cut the Saints lead to 30-18 – and that flattered the Dragons.

But Gil Dudson’s late try put the cat among the pigeons with less than two minutes to play – with Sam Kasiano scoring the match leveller by catching a kick after the final hooter.

Tommy Makinson and Lachlan Coote both missed drop goal attempts in golden point, allowing James Maloney to nail in in the second period of extra time.

Woolf said: “The biggest turnaround for us was the intensity we dropped off in that last 10 minutes.

“We gave them back the ball cheaply a number of times and we did not have to same intent and intensity around our defence.

“That showed in the kick off sets when all of a sudden having not been able to get past the 40 metre for the majority of the game all of a sudden they were running 60 and 70 metres to put us in bad spots.

“We have got to learn from that and have a good, hard look at that last 10 minutes and make sure that when we put ourselves in a good dominant position like that that we don’t make the same mistakes.”

Saints had played some good football having responded to an early Sam Tomkins try to take an 18-6 lead at the break courtesy of tries from Tommy Makinson, Coote and Sione Mata’utia.

Although Mata’utia’s second was cancelled out by Julian Bousquet’s close range effort, Morgan Knowles looked as though he had wrapped it up in 71 minutes.

But that is when it unravelled.

“The biggest disappointment is that we played really good footy for 60 or 70 minutes – exceptional footy and defended exceptionally as was some of the attack we threw up.

“We created other opportunities that would have put us in an even stronger position if we had nailed a couple of things at the end of it.

“When you do that, you finish positively and get the reward for all the good work that you have done.

“We did not do that. Although it was just a 10-minute period in which we dropped our intensity, once you have done that and made the decision to drop off it is hard to turn that back on.

“Our senior players needed to be better in that last 10 minutes, it was not a game management issue from our young halves – our senior players needed to step up to nail that last 10 minutes,” Woolf said.

“We went into this game wanting to win to keep the league leaders alive and were planning on attacking the three games that were left.

“I need to see where we sit and get over tonight and then approach the back end of the year.

“We are very disappointed that we lost that game. That was not taken from us, we lost that and have only ourselves to blame there.

“The best we can do is make sure we learn from that and make sure we get a response next week.

“We will see how we scrub up tomorrow and have a good look at the video.”

James Roby left the field in extra time and will be assessed tomorrow and during the week.

“He copped a heavy knock - a head knock and the side of his neck,” he said.

“He looked a bit banged up when he came off at the end, but we will get a better look tomorrow and through the week.