Watson praises Reds despite Wire defeat

SALFORD coach Ian Watson was happy with his side’s efforts, despite them failing to get out of the bottom four with a defeat at Warrington.

The scores were locked at 14-14 in a tense encounter at the Halliwell Jones when Josh Charnley struck in the second half with another superb winger’s try for The Wire.

He completed a spectacular diving finish in the corner to take his tally to 17 tries in just 14 appearances to leave Salford now facing an uphill task to avoid the Qualifiers with just four games left.

Late tries by Daryl Clark and Mike Cooper in the final 10 minutes gave Wolves a somewhat flattering winning margin.

But Watson says he can’t fault the effort of his Salford player.

He said: “The effort was outstanding and we were in a real arm-wrestle in the second half and we just broke first, but I think that kind of game will be good for us going forward.

“We had our chances to win the game and at 14-14 Robert Lui’s pass clipped Kris Welham’s shoulder - if that had gone round the back we would have had a two-on-one overlap and a dead-set score and it would have been a different game.

“But it proved the turning point because after that our kick chase is staggered through fatigue and they break and get a penalty and then they go down the other end and score.

“And that’s the difference with the top teams, they stick in the arm wrestle and know how to play them consistently. “On the whole I’m reasonably pleased with how we went about the game, we just need to be smarter with the little things to make us a better team.”

And Warrington coach Steve Price also had words of praise for Salford.

He said: “Credit to Salford, they had a real crack and they do stress you in certain parts of the field, but I’m pleased to get the two points.

“Two points is two points. I thought we did what we had to do to get the result and credit to the players, we will take the win and move on.”