Castleford 22 Salford Red Devils 20 Match Report
Journeys over into Yorkshire seldom bring great rewards for Lancashire teams in general, but Salford Red Devils’ College Academy came extremely close to doing so, on Wednesday afternoon, when they travelled over to take on Castleford, in their first away fixture of the season.
The closeness in standard of the two teams is clearly evident from the score, and was equally evident by the way the game swung from one team to the other. For the Salford players it must have been most heart-breaking to have come so close to victory, having taken a late 20-16 lead, to then fall behind by two points from a converted try, and then finally just failing to add one final try of their own, in the dying stages of the match.
It was approaching ten minutes into the game before the first try was scored by Castleford, to give them a four-point lead, but the Red Devils replied almost immediately with second rower, Jimmy Shields, going over, and Adam Tierney converting to put them in front.
It was proving to be a ding-dong battle as the teams went head-to-head, and next it was Castleford who restored their lead with two tries and one conversion to take the score to 14-6.
That would have been a fairly satisfactory lead for them to have taken in, at half-time, but the visitors had other ideas, and dummy-half, Luke Elliott, crossed to bring the Red Devils back into contention, with Tierney again adding the extras.
It was all to play for, then, in the second half, and it was Salford who dominated much of what proved to be a much tighter contest, opening the scoring with prop forward, Lucas Isles, crossing, near to the posts, but surprisingly, Tierney, who has been so reliable so far this season, was off the mark with his attempted conversion, leaving the scoreline reading 14-16.
Those two points proved to be important, for, when the home side was awarded a penalty close to the Salford line, they went for goal and succeeded in drawing level. The irrepressible Tierney, however, compensated in full by going over for the Red Devils’ final try, too far out for him to be able to add the goal, and Castleford’s conversion to their final try was enough to deliver them the win.
The Salford players will not have long to wait before getting the opportunity to wreak revenge, however, as the two teams will meet again, next week, in the first round of the Cup, and with the Yorkshiremen once again having home advantage.
