Salford Red Devils managed to ease the pressure on their shaky season with a 24-10 win over Widnes to guarantee Super League rugby in 2016.
Josh Griffin opened Salford’s account after just two minutes in front of a crowd of 3,876 on the Vikings’ 4G pitch.
Recap: Salford Red Devils vs Widnes Super 8 Qualifiers
Michael Dobson added more with a penalty after being brought down with a late tackle by Alex Gerrard.
Then Patrick Van Ah got Widnes on the scoreboard with space created by Rhys Hanbury’s classy overhead pass.
Widnes looked to have cancelled out Salford’s advantage but had a try disallowed from a Kevin Brown high kick, and the Devils pushed on with Scott Taylor crossing, and Cory Paterson smashing through the line under the posts to take his side 18-4 ahead.
The tackles were brutal; and both Chris Clarkson and Chris Dean were forced off the field after crunching challenges from the sturdy Salford defence.
Both sides were fighting hard: hooker Liam Hood, who joined Salford on a two-year deal from Hunslet Hawks last month, was sin-binned just before the break for a high tackle on Kevin Brown.
Returning stronger for the second half, Junior S’au leapt at a tiny crack in the Vikings defence to spiral over the line after 43 minutes.
Harrison Hansen was next to see yellow, sin-binned for a tackle on Hanbury , before Josh Griffin and Widnes skipper Kevin Brown were both sent off for brawling.
There have been serious concerns at Salford this season, with spats over money between stadium owners Salford City Council and owner Marwan Koukash; disciplinary problems with Rangi Chase; and concern over the placement of the team in the Qualifiers.
But fans were overjoyed at the prospect of more Super League rugby to come next season.
After the game Koukash took to Twitter to thank the fans and promised that new Director of Rugby Tim Sheens would continue to add to the squad in the close season.
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>The boys played well today and huge thanks to our fans today. You have been great all season and sorry we have failed you this year</p>— Marwan Koukash (@drmarwanK) <a href=”https://twitter.com/drmarwanK/status/645642012729962498″>September 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Having secured our SL place , Tim will start building for next year. Good players do not always win games, good people will</p>— Marwan Koukash (@drmarwanK) <a href=”https://twitter.com/drmarwanK/status/645680537131175938″>September 20, 2015</a></blockquote>
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Main image © SteveMcPix2015
