Wigan punish sloppy Salford to go top of the Super League table

Photo Credit – Adam Clarke

Wigan Warriors extend their unbeaten run in the Super League to six matches after scoring five try’s in a 26-8 victory over Salford Red Devils.

History repeated itself between these two clubs tonight with the Warriors coming out on top, promoting themselves to first place in the Super League table. They are now in pole position to land the league leaders shield.

Meanwhile, after tonight’s Super League ties, Salford have fallen out of the top six, and will now need other results to go their way in the remainder of the season.

The atmosphere was simmering nicely early on, with the tension and nerves of both fanbases echoing around the ground.

The deadlock was broken in 17^th minute by the boot of Salford’s Ryan Brierley. After reviewing some replays on the big screen, referee Chris Kendall decided to award the Red Devils a penalty for a dangerous tackle, allowing them to edge in front against the run of play.

Nevertheless, the Warriors were immediately back into the contest after Liam Farrell showcased some superb footwork to break the line, before side-stepping two Salford defenders to plant the ball down in the 21^st minute.

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Salford would once again convert a penalty to level the scores up at four a piece, but it was Wigan’s end to the half after they scored a further three try’s in the final ten minutes.

The first of these came from a shift out to the right wing that sent Abbas Miski flying over. The second came from a shift out to the left hand side where Jake Wardle was waiting to hit a hole.

But it was the third that was the pick of the bunch. In a sequence of play that would have had coach Paul Rowley ripping his hair out, Salford somehow managed to go from having a penalty after the halftime hooter, to conceding a length of the field try courtesy of Jai Field. Leaving the scores at 20-4 after 40 minutes.

The second half began in lively fashion. Salford narrowly missed out on their own length of the field try, before their prop forward King Vuniyayawa was sat down for 10 minutes. The enforcer was shown a yellow card for a high swinging arm on Wigan’s Bevan French.

Five minutes later the Warriors took full advantage of the extra man. Their danger duo Field and French linked up in sweet style with some lovely ball playing that set Toby King up to cross untouched.

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After that score the game took a turn for the worse, with mistakes happening left right and centre. Neither side showed much promise and the game was clearly wrapped up.

However, Salford did manage to get themselves a try with 10 minutes left to play. They rushed a tired Wigan defence and had them backing into the corner, allowing Ken Sio the space to dive in to reduce to deficit.

The game continued to fizzle out without much of a fight from either side, who both had their eyes on the final whistle that came as the score line read Wigan 26-8 Salford.

Wigan coach Matt Peet had this to say after the game;

“It feels great to be top of the league with three games to go. It shows that we’ve been consistent throughout the year.

“We have to build on this now because your only ever one game, one defeat away from not being top of the league. We’re going to go and prepare for a tough game against Leeds next week and try to build some form for the play-offs.

“We need to keep working hard, stay consistent and keep our belief in our system and what we do.”

Salford boss Paul Rowley said;

“I’m really disappointed today. We followed on from last week, we were rusty and simply not clinical enough. We won last week purely based on effort, you can’t do that against Wigan.

“We gave them far too much field position from silly errors that started right from our first set. The Field try was the icing on the cake, that summed it up.

“They have more energy than us when it mattered and were more proactive.”

Wigan’s destiny is now in their own hands, three comfortable wins from their last three games will wrap up the league leaders shield, and that journey starts next Saturday when they travel to Leeds.

As for Salford, they have a very tough run in and are now out of the top six. However, their next two fixtures are against the teams closest to them in the league, Warrington and Hull KR.