Red Devils stand firm and tame the Tigers
SALFORD CASTLEFORD 22 0 ON a night in which the Salford fans bid a fond farewell to their gang of departing stars, there was enough shown by those that are remaining Red Devils to demonstrate the bright future ahead for the club.
That begins next week, with a Preliminary Final against the winner of tonight’s top two clash.
But whether they take on League Leaders Shield winners St Helens or reigning Betfred Super League champions Wigan, Ian Watson knows that if his side defend like they did against the Tigers, they have every chance of progressing to the Grand Final at Old Trafford.
“We look back to the Leeds game and how we turned that into an arm wrestle,” Ian Watson explained. “We knew at that point that we were going to be in the playoffs, we just didn’t know where.
“So we wanted to turn that into a real mentality game, going set for set and we had to do a lot of defending.
“We’ve been playing that way for a number of weeks now, so we’ve got that mentality and the bit between our teeth. We’ve got the belief that we can win playoff games.”
Jackson Hastings, Josh Jones, George Griffin, Logan Tomkins and Jake Bibby all made their final appearances as home players at the AJ Bell Stadium and were part of a collective effort that restricted the Tigers to little in the way of attacking threat.
Former halfback Rob Lui took to the field at halftime to enjoy a proper send off from the Salford fans, but it was his replacement Tui Lolohea that provided the first spark in the fixture, skipping away from defenders and sliding an excellent short kick into the ingoal area for Tyrone McCarthy to touch down.
Bibby then crashed over in the corner to extend the
Red Devils’ advantage, before Niall Evalds demonstrated the never-say-die attitude that typifies this team with a barely-believable last-gasp chase-down tackle on Jordan Rankin, dragging the opposition fullback down two metres from the tryline and throwing him into touch.
A Krisnan Inu penalty took the lead out to 14 points before halftime and that remained the scoreline for the first 34 minutes of the second half, but in that period, Salford demonstrated exactly why they are a force to be reckoned with in these playoffs.
For half an hour, Castleford League Leaders Shield winners and Grand Finalists in 2017 - couldn’t get out of their own half as Lolohea, Lee Mossop and Gil Dudson took turns to force errors from Daryl Powell’s side.
With five minutes remaining, Hastings got the moment his performances in a Red Devils shirt have so richly deserved, sliding over in front of the adoring South Stand fans on his farewell appearance at the stadium.
But he’ll be lining up for Salford again next week, as part of a team just 80 minutes from a maiden Grand Final at Old Trafford. Tyrone McCarthy celebrates with team-mates after scoring a try