Salford Red Devils 4 Leigh Leopards 44 Match Report
Just three weeks after ratchetting up a colossal 90-0 victory over Castleford at the Mend-a Hose Jungle, in last Sunday’s home fixture with Leigh Leopards, the Red Devils, though a considerably better team, found themselves in a not dissimilar position to that of the unfortunate Tigers, as the visiting Leopards cut loose in the first half.
To be fair, this Leigh team has been by far and away the stand-out side in the women’s Championship League, this season, putting considerable scorelines, well in excess of this one, against a number of other teams
Meanwhile, the Salford side, which had had a most impressive win, away at Hull KR, in their last outing, was, this time out, lacking several key players, who had been replaced by others, newly recruited, and making their debuts here. This was compounded, as the game proceeded, by a number of injuries to the team, all of which made the task all the harder.
Nevertheless, despite a difficult first half, the group used the half time interval to galvanise themselves to put on a much more competitive second forty, which limited the opposition to less than half of the points they had scored before half time.
The Reds got their reward, fifteen minutes from time, when they succeeded in scoring their try. Having acquired good field position, the players realised that this might prove to be a possibility, and put in some good hit ups towards the line. The last of these, by Emily Bagguley, succeeded in sucking in defenders to stop her, as she powered towards the line.
Realising this, dummy half, Taz Corcoran, sent the ball towards the flank, to prop, Emerald Hickey, who carried it forward into a melee of defenders, and then succeeded in sending out the sweetest of passes to the supporting Jadine McVernon, who had timed her run to perfection to finish off the try.
The fact that they had scored against such a dominant opposition was most rewarding for the whole team, so that they had not been nilled, especially for those who had contributed over and above in terms of effort and impact, such as loose forward, Sophie Morris, who was absolutely outstanding, throughout the whole game despite everything.
This was a one-off encounter, which is unlikely to be repeated again, with the remaining six fixtures appearing quite winnable, and enabling the team to feature in the end of season playoffs.
As one absent member of the squad put it to me, afterwards
“Once we are all back fit and well, we will be able to match Leigh quite competently, when we eventually have to play them in the play offs”.
SALFORD
Alex Simpson, Marnie-Lee Kelly, Caitlin Washington, Kim Seddon, Megan Hoblin, Ellie Costello, Sam Evans, Olivia Hill, Tamzin Corcoran, Emily Bagguley, Summer Harris, Jadine McVernon, Sophie Morris
Interchanges:
Abi Collins, Emerald Hickey, Lily Gray, Yasmin Parton-Sotomayor
18th Player – Hannah Wicks
