Following last week’s defeat at Leeds Rhinos the relegation trap-door was poised ready for the Reds but with three crucial games ahead all against Championship teams they could still clinch third place in the Qualifier’s table providing they ran up big scores in those remaining games.
The Reds could probably though have done without the news that Director of Rugby Tim Sheens was jumping ship to join relegation rivals Hull Kingston Rovers at the end of the season.
Salford suffered an early setback with less than a minute on the clock when Featherstone took the lead with a try from Jordan Baldwinson and a conversion from Kyle Briggs.
The scores were even three minutes later when Weller Hauraki although tackled short kept his momentum going to stretch over the line to score. Gareth O’Brien converted (6-6).
In the 8th minute the Reds scored their second try when a kick to the corner by Michael Dobson was knocked back by Josh Griffin for Junior Sau to score. O’Brien’s conversion brought a 12-6 scoreline.
Salford then went on to add six further first-half tries through Josh Jones,Daniel Vidot,Sau,Niall Evalds,Ben Murdoch-Masila and Logan Tomkins. O’Brien landed four conversions.
Sandwiched in-between was a second Rovers try from Jack Ormonroyd,again converted by Briggs.
The Reds by half-time were firmly in the driving-seat at 44-12.
Rovers,as in the first half scored first after the break with Josh Walters crashing over (44-16).
Thereafter it was one-way traffic as Salford added five more tries through Olsi Krasniqi,Hauraki,Dobson,Murdoch-Masila and Jones. O’Brien added three more conversions to complete a 70-16 mauling.
Coach Ian Watson later spoke of the pressure surrounding his players: “There’s a different pressure playing at the bottom end and playing for your livelihoods than there is playing at the top of the table and playing for trophies.
“Against Hull KR and Leigh you could see the nervousness in the side and how many opportunities and tries we bombed when we have not been doing that all year.
“So we have had to go back to real basics to build the confidence in the players again and getting the ball sticking because of the anxiety and pressure people were under. We’ve put that to one side now and hopefully we can go forward in the right way and secure our Super League status.
“It was a really pleasing and professional performance.
“We have to be professional again next week against London because they will come at us and we mustn’t start trying to score tries from all over the place; it’s about doing a professional job and the points will come on the back of that.”
Salford: Evalds,Vidot,Jones,Sau,J Griffin,O’Brien,Dobson,Burgess,Tomkins,G Griffin,Murdoch-Masila,Hauraki,
Flanagan.
