When the chips are down and a team are facing the most ferocious criticism, it is usually the truly great players who inspire comebacks that can go on and define a season. Time will tell whether this result turns out to be that significant for Catalans Dragons, but it is hard to imagine they would have recorded their first win since the Super League restart without Israel Folau. Last weekend Folau took the headlines when he was the only player to opt against taking a knee pre-match. While he did the same this week, and two of his Catalans teammates in Sam Moa and Benjamin Garcia followed suit, the latest round of headlines accompanying world rugby’s most divisive figure were all about his supremacy on the field. “At 14-0, we were staring down the barrel and maybe looking at a very different result,” the Catalans coach, Steve McNamara, said after watching his side score 40 unanswered points to defeat Castleford, who were seeking to go top of the table with a win. After a quarter of this game, they looked well on course to do so. Two tries from Michael Shenton and three goals from Danny Richardson not only put Castleford in control, but seemingly on course for a comfortable victory. Given the embarrassing nature in how the Dragons collapsed against St Helens last week, what followed next seemed impossible, but Folau has so often shown he has the ability to make the unthinkable happen. At that stage, Catalans simply had to score next. They did so when Folau provided the fraction of space for Tom Davies to cross in the corner which only truly world-class centres can craft. That made it 14-4, and when Castleford’s Peter Mata’utia was sent to the sin-bin moments later, the momentum swung firmly in the Dragons’ favour. By half-time, Alrix Da Costa had burrowed over and Folau had scored an astonishing solo try, underlining his athleticism with power, pace and prowess to scythe through the Castleford defence, to put Catalans 16-14 ahead. Not only would they retain that lead after the break, but their defensive line would not be breached again. Yes, this was a team performance from Catalans, but how they were grateful for Folau’s heroics either side of the break. “I still think there’s a lot more to come from him,” McNamara said of the Australian, who will stay with the Dragons in 2021 after agreeing a new deal. “He was close to not getting on the plane with his wife being pregnant, but thankfully he did.” While Catalans were superb following that early setback, Castleford were below par. The fact the Dragons had already played under the quicker, more full-throttle rule changes last week may have helped their cause, but this was still way below what Super League has come to expect from Daryl Powell’s side in recent years. “We never got the game back after going down to 12 men,” Powell conceded. “They got the ascendancy in the game and we couldn’t really get it back.” How Folau was instrumental in doing that. The try that put Catalans 22-14 ahead – resulting from a shocking error by Derrell Olpherts, who passed in his own in-goal area to Garcia for a simple finish – was fortunate, but nothing thereafter about the Dragons was. Folau’s stunning mid-air leap to claim a high kick and offload to Joel Tomkins was extraordinary, before he turned provider again with his third assist, this time for Davies to score his second. By then, the game was long since secured for Catalans, before a final flourish in the dying moments saw Jason Baitieri round off an impressive display from the Dragons.