Watson pleased with pre-season progress
COACH IMPRESSED AS DEVILS HIT 40 POINTS IN LEIGH FRIENDLY
SALFORD continued their preparations for the 2020 Super League season with a 40-14 friendly victory over Leigh at the AJ Bell Stadium.
The Saturday lunchtime fixture saw the Red Devils step up in performance from last week’s win over Swinton and impress their coach.
“That was a real good hitout for us,” said Ian Watson. “The first 50 minutes we looked really good, really composed. It was important we had a team like Leigh for our second game. Swinton did a really good job, they had a good arm wrestle with us at the start of the game last week.
“But Leigh are a different proposition and I expect them to go really well this year. We’ve had two hitouts and we’ve come through pretty healthy, so that’s where we wanted to be after two games There’s little things we’re ticking off as we go along. Defensively it was good and on the whole, we’re pretty pleased with where we’re at.”
The first element of any real quality came around 10 minutes in, as Rhys Williams used excellent footwork to evade two defenders in bringing the ball away from his own line. That got the Red Devils onto the front foot and the momentum led to back-to-back penalties. Joey Lussick was held up over the line in his first exploration from dummy half, but could not be denied a couple of plays later, reacting too quickly at hooker for the scrambling Centurions defence.
But Salford coughed up the restart and backed it up with a penalty to hand attacking position to the visitors. Ex-Red Devil Liam Hood capitalised, touching down despite the attentions of three defenders.
Williams was again in the thick of the action soon after, taking his opposite winger Adam Higson into touch to prevent a try, before going straight up the other end of the field and diving over in the corner on the back of a trademark long pass from Kevin Brown. Brown produced another expert flick to send Ken Sio over soon after, before James Greenwood finished off an excellent try.
With the former England halfback withdrawn early in the second half and both coaches making changes, the Red Devils were a little disjointed after the break, Brad Holroyd and Junior Sa’u scoring back-to-back tries to cut the deficit. But Williams’ footwork was soon on show again as he danced through the Leigh defence to score, before Seb Ikahihifo charged through several defenders and offloaded to Josh Johnson to stroll in.
The Red Devils hit 40 after the final hooter as the Centurions looked to keep the ball alive, but could only find Ed Chamberlain, who raced over. Salford now set off for a warm weather camp in Spain before returning to pre-season action against Warrington on Thursday, January 23.
■ SALFORD: Evalds, Sio, Welham, Kear, Williams, Lolohea, Brown, Johnson, Lussick, Dudson, McCarthy, Greenwood, Flanagan. Interchanges: Atkin, Ikahihifo, Walker, Pauli, Yates, Burke, Inu, Chamberlain, Sarginson, Jones, Ormondroyd.
■ LEIGH: McNally, Forsyth, I. Thornley, Sa’u, Higson, Reynolds, Sammut, Mason, Hood, Ioane, Hellewell, Glohe, Addy. Interchanges: Wildie, Thompson, Brooks, Woods, Spencer, Ridyard, Ince, A. Thornley, Mullen, Field, Holroyd.