ATOMIC BOMB!

Deadly Davies grabs hat-trick of tries for Dragons

Halifax Panthers 4 Catalans Dragons 40

TOM DAVIES’ quickfire hat-trick sent Catalans into the Challenge Cup quarter-finals – but his future almost certainly lies elsewhere.

The Dragons winger underlined his deadly finishing skills by crossing the whitewash three times in the opening 13 minutes at the Shay Stadium.

It was another telling reminder of the quality of Davies (right) as part-time Championship outfit Halifax were taken to the cleaners.

But with his contract expiring this year, Davies is being linked with Super League rivals Hull KR and St Helens.

Catalans boss Steve McNamara, who signed the 27-year-old from Wigan, hinted Davies could leave.

He said: “We want to retain everybody. But it’s the nature of the game that if players get offers elsewhere then there will be speculation – as there is with a lot of players in the competition.

“Tom is one of them, but he’s been great for us and will continue to be until the day he leaves.

“We’ve got a lot of work going on behind the scenes with regards to retention and recruitment.”

McNamara famously guided the French club to a historic Challenge Cup final win over Warrington at Wembley in 2018.

His team had the added complication yesterday of flying in and out of England from Montpellier due to Perpignan Airport being shut.

The former England boss explained: “We’ve had to pay for a private flight from Montpellier – it’s cost us a lot of money to get here and to get back so we needed to win.

“It’s probably going to cost us a fair bit more in the next round as well because, whether we’re at home or away, we’ll be paying the travel costs.”

Davies scored twice early on with easy finishes in the right corner, but his third try took some finishing as he produced a stunning acrobatic effort.

With Jordan Abdull converting all three tries, Catalans led 18-0.

Paul Seguier barged over for a fourth Dragons try and Abdull converted again to make it 24-0 at the interval.

Second-half scores from Arthur Romano (celebrating, below), Cesar Rouge and Chris Satae (inset, left) rubbed salt in the wounds.

It proved to be a struggle for Halifax (halfback Joe Keyes is tackled, inset right) until James Saltonstall’s lastminute try raised home spirits.

Panthers coach

Liam Finn said:

“We wanted to be better by challenging Catalans a bit more and make it a contest for longer.

“But before we touched the ball, we were 12-0 down and it completely burst our bubble.

That killed us.”