Salford Red Devils produced a stunning second-half performance to beat Hull KR on Magic Weekend.
Marc Sneyd – so often the difference for the Red Devils this season – surpassed 1000 goals on his 300th career appearance, with Adam Sidlow also reaching the significant career landmark of 350.
It was a lightening-quick start by Salford. Chris Atkin tried to scurry over from dummy-half early on, but amongst a host of KR bodies, our number 14 lost the ball.
We were almost on the board again minutes later when Deon Cross slipped through Ken Sio, but a scramble on the Robins right edge stopped the flying winger from handing us the lead.
After being completely on the front foot, KR gained valuable metres and took the lead – perhaps against the run of play.
Parcell found the gap down the Salford centre and offloaded to Coote, who found Minchella with an flick pass to slide under the sticks.
That led to period of play where Salford were under some real pressure, but a magical break from Brodie Croft soon got us back on level terms.
Out of nothing, the Aussie darted past a puzzled KR line to create a golden opportunity. Joe Burgess was racing in support and turned on the afterburners to bring us level.
That field position proved vital and a nice chase by Ben Hellewell and Burgess on the last had the Robins pinned inside their own 20.
Rushing to get out of trouble, a conceded penalty allowed Sneyd to add two more.
Some more quick, incisive play almost had Ken Sio in on the right, but Kallum Watkins’ flick pass was just too hard for the winger to gather.
Going straight down the other end, George King dummied his man to break through the gap and hand KR the lead.
That lead was cut in half on the hooter, however. Mikey Lewis caught Croft with a high shot and Sneyd sent over the penalty-goal.
HALF-TIME: Salford Red Devils 10-12 Hull KR
After trading sets in the opening exchanges of the second forty, Croft made sure he was first to a bobbling ball and sent Hellewell away with a neat pass.
His ball to Burgess was just behind the winger and multiple KR defenders made the scramble to nudge him out of play.
It was a cagey next twenty minutes and perhaps needed a penalty to spark the game into life.
Tyler Dupree was hit high and Sneyd took the opportunity to sink the penalty-goal – bringing up 1000 career goals in the process.
His kicking got Salford back into the game and even nudged us two points ahead when he, himself was hit late by Dean Hadley, who was sent to the sin-bin.
Cross was also shown yellow minutes later and back to 12v12, KR struck.
Kane Linnett found half a yard and flicked an offload to Ryan Hall, who acrobatically dived over in the left corner.
Losing the lead never dampened the players’ spirits and the next 25 minutes was a sublime attacking performance by the Red Devils.
Croft dug into the line, played in Brierley and his mazy run causes chaos. Sio – as always – was in support to take the pass and slide over.
After Sneyd added the extras, Brierley broke again on the last tackle of the next set.
He found Croft and despite KR knocking him to the ground, they failed to complete the tackle and the half-back flicked the ball up for Chris Atkin to crash over in front of the jubilant, travelling faithful.
FULL-TIME: Salford Red Devils 26-16 Hull KR
Photo by Matthew Merrick
