Report: Salford 22-6 Warrington

Warrington fell to a sixth straight defeat in Super League with a 22-6 loss away at Salford to put Wire's place in the playoffs under some serious threat with two games remaining of the league season.


As expected, there were plenty of changes from the Challenge Cup Final. Chris Hill, Mike Cooper, Toby King and Declan Patton were all rested from the 19-man squad, while Ben Currie, Josh Charnley and Matt Davis were also rested despite being named in the 19. In came Luther Burrell at centre and Jake Mamo on the wing, with Matty Smith being recalled in the halves alongside Jack Hughes. Joe Philbin started at prop, as did Lama Tasi, while Danny Walker started as the hooker with Daryl Clark on the bench. The second row consisted of Harvey Livett and Ben Murdoch-Masila, who kept his place in the 13, as did Jason Clark at loose forward. Luis Johnson and Ben Westwood were also brought into the side and started on the interchange bench with Sitaleki Akauola. 

It was a quiet start to the game from both teams, with a penalty conceded by Murdoch-Masila for a high tackle on Jackson Hastings the main talking point of the opening exchanges. Salford got on the scoreboard first when they were awarded a penalty for offside, and elected to take the two points on offer. Krisnan Inu kicked the goal and put Ian Watson's side 2-0 in front after ten minutes. It was penalties galore from both sides with Chris Kendall penalising offside for Salford chasing a kick and Burrell for holding down before a clash between Tasi and former Wire man Tyrone McCarthy. A good piece of defending from Jason Clark prevented a Salford try, though the home side were starting to look the more threatening, particularly with Smith knocking on and then conceding a penalty in a matter of moments. Constant excellent Wire defence kept the game tryless at half-time with Salford narrowly in front courtesy of Inu's early penalty.

Salford started the second half brightly, forcing Wire into more great defending, but the pressure finally told nine minutes in when Tui Lolohea's high kick was dropped by Tom Lineham and presented Ken Sio with the easy task of touching down in the corner. Inu's kick at goal hit the post, meaning it was a 6-0 lead. Wire looked to respond and were in a good attacking position after good carries from the interchanges Akauola and Johnson, but a dire kick from Smith was easily gobbled up and the chance was gone. A few minutes later, Salford's lead was stretched further after an error from Mamo. The winger knocked on a high ball before Joey Lussick found Hastings, who then played it to Lolohea. Kris Welham fought off the challenge of Smith and Bryson Goodwin, before offloading the ball to Sio. Sio cut in from his right and evaded Livett before crashing over for his second try. Inu was again off-target with the boot and the score was 10-0. 

The situation was worsened just a minute later. A superb break from Lussick after a quick play-the-ball got him past Hughes, Daryl Clark and Mamo, before finding Hastings, who played in Jake Bibby. The Wigan-bound winger cut in from his left to elude Stefan Ratchford before diving over for the line despite the close attentions of Mamo and Lineham. A maiden successful kick from Inu made it 16-0. A short kick-off from Ratchford worked and Philbin came up with the ball. In their desperation to score, Wire were passing the ball from right to left, a long booming ball from Ratchford finding Goodwin, the Australian then handing over to Lineham. The winger tried a little dabbed kick, but it was caught clean by Sio. The former Hull KR man had a clean track and unleashed his pace, going the length of the field unchallenged and scoring a simple try. Sio's hat-trick and Inu's third goal put paid to any hope of a comeback, with the scores now 22-0 with 17 minutes remaining. Salford thought they had another try but it was correctly ruled out for offside. With just a minute left, the ball found its way to Danny Walker, now playing in the halves. Walker feinted to pass wide before stabbing a little grubber kick into the in-goal area and chasing it down himself, grounding the ball for his first Warrington try and a deserved consolation. Ratchford's kick meant the game finished 22-6.

It may well be another defeat and a blow to our hopes of getting a home game in the playoffs, but in the circumstances, it was a very good effort. For the first 50 minutes the team were defensively superb, and it has to be remembered that this was just five days after the Challenge Cup Final, with only one training session - the rescheduling of this fixture probably made this an impossible task. I was pleased with the effort and with the performances of a few players - Jason Clark, Lama Tasi and Danny Walker were impressive. I am yet to see anything of Luther Burrell or Matty Smith that shows us why they have been signed, while Tom Lineham and Ben Murdoch-Masila had terrible games but in reality, that is probably Saturday catching up with them. We have two games left and we need to secure our playoff place, preferably finishing 2nd or 3rd, and to do that we are going to need to get one, or probably two, wins.

There are plenty of reasons why we lost this game, and Salford did deserve the win, so I'm prepared to write this one off and forget about it - but we absolutely must win against Wakefield next week.

Daniel (@aloosewire)