SOME GROUNDS FOR OPTIMISM
St Helens 32 Salford 12 Match Report – David Clegg
Being the first of the second half of the season, this match provided good opportunity to assess progress over the season so far, with the Saints having been only the second team to visit the A J Bell Stadium back in late February. On that occasion the Saints had surged into a twelve point lead, to which they were then held by the improving Devils, only for the visitors to run away with the game in the second half, rattling up an unanswered thirty-eight points.
Friday evening’s encounter, though was a much tighter affair even though the Salford players once again seemed to be caught out by the speed of the Saints’ attack, with a long distance break coming on only St Helens’s second play of the game, followed by another three minutes later. The Red Devils responded well, and from then on matched their illustrious opponents with a solid defensive structure in the middle of the field for most of the game.
Not so there goal-line-defence, however, which in the first half, especially, appeared quite fragile, with Saints running in three tries before the interval, with seeming ease, so clinical was their finishing. It will be the third of these, though, which will have caused the coaching staff most aggravation, coming, as it did, back to back with the preceding Saints’ score.
The attack, in comparison with the previous week’s match against Wigan, was much more imaginative, but sadly somewhat lacking in execution, with numerous errors compounding the size of the challenge they had to overcome. This is exemplified by the fact that home side’s first try, on 17 mins, came directly as a result of two such errors.
A penalty, in the Saints’ half of the field for obstruction handed position and possession to them, and this was compounded, despite a sterling defensive effort from the tap, when the Red Devils failed to take the end of set kick, thereby giving their goal line defensive its first testing. With virtually every other St Helens’ try coming in similar vein, the difference in the scores can be traced back to this flawed aspect of the Devils’ game.
Yet there were some, equally abundant, commendable aspects of their play. With the score at 0-0, five back to back sets included Rangi Chase, unfortunately, being held up over the line on ten minutes. Had he been able to ground the ball, this would have given the Salford players a great lift, ata crucial time, and provided them with some little encouragement.
It was, consequently, not until the second half that they opened their account, when, despite facing a 16-0 deficit, they appeared to show greater focus from the outset. Five well completed sets, coupled with Eden’s preventing a Saints’ forty-twenty, put the home side under pressure and culminated, on 45 mins, in their first try through Niall Evalds, a clear man of the match, who celebrated his return to the team by grounding Chase’s end-of-set kick, in the corner.
Indeed, Evalds had been prominent with two earlier good breaks down his left hand wing, being stopped short, on both occasions by the covering Walsh, and went on to be not only Salford’s top metre maker, but the top metre maker of the whole game, nearly doubling that of second placed, Paul Wellens.
With Gareth Hock’s 68th minute try from one of his typical, telling breaks, and Tim Smith’s excellent goal-kicking, the Red Devils matched, point for point, the Saints’ two converted second half tries, with their additional four points coming from two penalty goals.
So with a final deficit of twenty points, as opposed to the near forty they conceded back in February, together with two converted tries, a couple of near misses, and all in an away fixture to boot, there are clear grounds for some optimism for the rest of the season, tempered understandably though with the requirement for yet further improvement and with some alacrity.
St Helens Scorers
Tries – Wellens (2), Soliola, Hohaia, Wheeler
Goals – Walsh (6)
