WARRINGTON Wolves look out of sorts in Perpignan and have it all to do in the second half.

Too many handling errors and not completing sets on their own terms against a keen home defence left them on the back foot for most of the opening 40 minutes and Catalans Dragons made them pay.

While Wolves looked to struggle to come to terms with having a change of half back – Gary Wheeler starting instead of Richie Myler – Australia Todd Carney was having a whale of a time on his Super League debut.

Les Catalans opened the scoring after Chris Hill gave a penalty away for interference on Ian Henderson.

From the penalty, the ball was swept left where Scott Dureau and Zeb Taia fed Willie Tonga over between Joel Monaghan and Chris Bridge. Dureau’s conversion made it 6-0 after eight minutes.

Kevin Penny came to the rescue from a scrum when Carney’s long pass sent Michael Oldfield heading to the corner but the full back’s pace got him in place to block the Australian 10 metres from home.

Then a Carney pass that put Oldfield over was ruled forward and it was a further sign of the stand off’s growing influence when a 40/20 attempt paid off as Dragons pressure mounted.

Wolves tried to turn the tide after a Dragons handling mishap and Wheeler’s short pass looked to have put Chris Hill over from 10 metres but somehow Morgan Escare got his hands and body beneath the ball to hold up the England prop over the line.

An attempted chargedown backfired for Wolves when Ben Harrison knocked on.

Dragons raided and after Dureau’s switch of play Elliott Whitehead and Ben Pomeroy combined for Oldfield to dive over by the corner flag.

Dureau added the extras from the touchline to make it 12-0 after 25 minutes.

The lead was soon stretched by another six points, Catalans breaking from halfway around the outside of Wolves’ defence with Vincent Duport collecting Willie Tonga’s long pass and fending off a feeble Wheeler covering tackle as he stretched out for home.

Again Dureau converted from wide out to complete the first-half scoring.

Dragons: Morgan Escaré; Michael Oldfield, Ben Pomeroy, Willie Tonga, Vincent Duport; Todd Carney, Scott Dureau; Louis Anderson , Ian Henderson, Jeff Lima, Zeb Taia, Elliott Whitehead, Greg Mounis. Subs: Benjamin Garcia, Julian Bousquet, Antoni Maria, Jason Baitieri.

Wolves: Kevin Penny; Joel Monaghan, Chris Bridge, Ryan Atkins, Matty Russell; Gareth O’Brien, Gary Wheeler; Chris Hill, Daryl Clark, Ashton Sims, Ben Currie, James Laithwaite, Ben Westwood. Subs: Ben Harrison, Micky Higham, Roy Asotasi, Joe Philbin.