LINDSEY VONN won bronze in the final race of her glittering career in the women’s downhill at the World Championships in Are, Sweden. The American (above) looked set for a fairytale ending, but a flawless run by Ilka Stuhec of Slovenia saw her take gold.
HASTINGS INSPIRES ‘WRITTEN OFF’ SALFORD TO TOP OF TABLE
IAN WATSON backed Salford to continue proving the doubters wrong after they moved top of the early Super League table.
Aussie half-back Jackson Hastings made two tries and scored one himself as the Red Devils made it two wins from two.
Salford were largely written off before the start of the campaign, but have conceded just two tries in wins over Huddersfield and now London.
Watson said: “If you listen to Sky they don’t think we should be in this league. Bill Arthur and Terry O’Connor were on the other day about how Huddersfield should never lose a game against us.
“People have their opinions and we’re only two games in, but we’ll see who’s right at the end.
“We’re confident as a group and we don’t feel the need to shout about anything.
“The team has faced a lot of stuff this week and to come through it, defend as well as we did and keep a team like London to zero bodes well.”
Watson revealed his squad overcame sickness in the camp in the build-up.
He added: “It’s been a tough week as a group, a lot of the boys have had flu and colds.
“We pulled training the other day and Robbie Lui was a doubt because he had it all yesterday. For the JUSTIN HOLBROOK described Saints’ win as “brilliant” after Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook (left) proved their lastgasp match-winner. But Wakefield made it tough for last season’s League Leaders’ Shield winners. Trinity saw talisman Danny Brough sin-binned for dissent and lost prop Craig Huby to a dislocated shoulder.
Saints’ other tries came from Tommy Makinson (2), Morgan Knowles and Regan Grace – while Wakefield replied in kind through Tom Johnstone guys to do what they’ve done and get through that, they’ve done really well.”
London defended superbly in the first half, restricting the home side to a solitary Ken Sio try, despite Salford enjoying long spells of pressure. But when Hastings touched down a Niall Evalds kick soon after the restart, the Red Devils had a lead they never looked likely to relinquish. Hastings (left, celebrating his try) returned the favour for Evalds before sending Josh Jones over in the closing (2) and Bill Tupou. “It is only round two but we knew Wakey would be hard to beat,” said head coach Holbrook.
“It was everything we expected coming off their disappointment last week and this being their first home game. In the second half, we defended our lines stages and dampening the Broncos’ mood after their head-turning opening win over Wakefield.
London coach Danny Ward said: “To go in 6-0 at half-time was good considering how much defending we’d done.
“We defended quite a lot of sets and that sapped us and took some juice out of us later in the game.
“We’re disappointed with how we performed and attacked, but some of the stuff Salford did in that first half was outstanding.
“We made a couple of errors and there’s always lots of lessons to learn win or lose – and they’ll need to learn them.” outstandingly for four or five sets which probably won us the game.”
Trinity boss Chris Chester said: “To lose in that manner is tough and disappointing.
“But if we keep turning up with that effort every week we will win more than we lose.”