RED DEVILS MAKE FIFTY
Salford 58 London 26 Match Report – David Clegg
The Salford players went some way to putting right the things that went wrong in last week’s poor display at Wakefield, with this comprehensive, though somewhat patchy, victory over Super League’s 2014 wooden spoonists, London Broncos.
Yes there were times when, with ball in hand, the Devils were absolutely on fire, running in some wonderfully thrilling tries, with slick handling and first rate support work central to the scores. On the other hand there were times when they fell off the pace in defence, and far from shutting down the visiting Broncos and then pressing home their advantage, they contrived to hand the initiative to their opponents by means of weak, ineffective tackling and conceding an 11:3 penalty count.
Hence, the commendable acquisition of almost sixty points was considerably eroded by the visitors’ scoring of no less than five tries through Atkins, Macani, Cook, Drinkwater and Slyney, and Drinkwater’s conversion of three of them. That twenty of their points came in the last quarter of the game, after Salford had built up a forty point lead, should in itself not been surprising, as the Londoners have become quite adept at pulling a few points back in the later stages of games. It should also be remembered that the Red Devils had had a particularly challenging and demanding week’s training, which had clearly left them somewhat drained of energy.
It was, nevertheless, the win that everyone connected with the club both wanted and needed, and gives the team a basis upon which to build for their final outing of the season, against Widnes Vikings, on Saturday.
In an evenly balanced opening quarter, it took Salford six minutes before they opened their account, when a break by Fages set up Tommy Lee (above left) for the first score under the post, goaled by man of the match, Josh Griffin (above right), who went on to have an absolutely storming game with a personal tally of thirty points, from three tries and nine conversions the majority of which were from difficult angles.
Although Fages had a further try, on 11 mins, disallowed owing to a handling error, the game continued with the arm wrestle which was eventually broken,when Fages again set up, this time, Jordan Walne (right), for a try over to the right. The fact that he might have come round closer to the posts before grounding mattered not, for Griffin was equal to the task of kicking this goal just as much as he was all but one of the remaining kicks.
The game started to run away from London, despite their having notched their first try on 25 mins, in the closing stages of the half, when the Devils ran in three converted tries to put themselves well ahead, at 30-4.
Josh Griffin got on the end of Chase’s kick into the in goal area on 29 mins. Five minutes later, the ball was moved across to the right and Sa’u’s pass put Greg Johnson in at the corner, before a great bout of inter-passing involving Chase, Josh Griffin twice, and Evalds, led to Tomkins (left) scoring from Griffin’s final pass.
London regrouped sufficiently over the interval to double their score within two minutes of the restart, but quick hands along the line opened up a gap for Jason Walton (below) to open up the floodgates on 46 mins, followed almost immediately by Griffin’s second try taking the score to 42-8.
The unusual spectacle of a try straight from a scrum came, on 52 mins, from a long pass to Greg Johnson (right) for his second of the afternoon. 48-8
Possibly the best score of all came three minutes later. It started with a break by Johnson, followed with support from Fages, Chase, Josh Griffin, and Evalds who gave the final inside pass to Griffin to complete his hat trick. From what was one of the more straight forward attempts, Griffin missed with his one failed conversion attempt.
The remainder of the afternoon, though, belonged almost entirely to the visitors with tries on 59, 64, and 68 mins, as members of their starting line up returned from the bench for their second spell, to stamp their presence once more on the game, and narrow the Devils’ lead to 52-26.
The final word, however, went to Greg Johnson who completed his own hat trick with a try, on 78 mins, to the right of the post, with Griffin making no mistake this time with the conversion.
