Israel Folau was once more the talk of Headingley, but this time for his prowess as a world-class player as he helped Catalans Dragons come from 14-0 down to earn a 40-14 Super League victory over Castleford.
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The dual-code international showed his athleticism to score one individual try and create two more in a man-of-the-match performance as the French club bounced back in style from their 34-6 hammering by St Helens, scoring 40 unanswered points after they making an awful start.
Folau declined to take a knee in support of the Black Lives Matter movement for the second successive week and this time he was joined by two of his Catalans Dragons team-mates, Benjamin Jullien and former Sydney Roosters prop Sam Moa.
Catalans coach Steve McNamara said after last Sunday's game that the players were free to make a personal choice on the matter and, as a devout Christian, Folau is thought to have taken the view that he will bow only to his God.
Folau, who was sacked from his Rugby Australia contract in 2019 for homphobic comments on social media, endured a difficult start to the match as his opposite number, Michael Shenton, raced in for two tries inside the first 10 minutes.
However, Folau stopped the rot when he unleashed winger Tom Davies on 22 minutes for his first try for the club before the Catalans took full advantage of the sin-binning of Castleford centre Peter Mata'utia for a dangerous tackle on Sami Langi.
Replacement hooker Alrix Da Costa squeezed over from dummy half for his side's second try and the Yorkshiremen were still down to 12 men when Folau broke clean through their first line of defence in spectacular fashion before handing off Eden to score a solo try.
James Maloney kicked his second conversion to edge the Dragons into a 16-14 interval lead and they extended it in fortuitous fashion four minutes into the second half.
Folau showed his class again on 62 minutes when he rose high to bring down Josh Drinkwater's high kick and offloaded from the subsequent tackle to get second rower Joel Tomkins over for a try.
The former Wallaby, whose wife is expecting their first child in Perpignan, recently signed a new contract for 2021 and McNamara insists there is much more to come from him.
"I hope he gets better and he's determined to," McNamara said.
"He's got the potential to improve.
"I think there is a lot more to come, he works really hard.
"He was great today but his wife is due to give birth any time now and he nearly didn't get on the plane. Thankfully he did."
Australian Associated Press
