Warrington Wolves (Cat 3) 10 Salford Red Devils (Cat 3) 34
Building upon last week’s victory at Widnes, Salford U19s squad continued their winning ways with the beating of near neighbours Warrington, this Wednesday, in the most convincing of styles.
With the rather stormy elements in their favour the visitors used these to their advantage to build up a commanding ,24-0, half time lead, and although they found the going tougher in the second half, were sufficiently far ahead to be relatively untroubled by their hosts resurgence after the break.
Coach, Danny Barton, was a well satisfied man, as a result of his side’s efforts and the quality of their performance.
“The lads have been building from one week to the next for some time now, and that was the best that we have played in the whole season. We had always believed it would be tough, particularly playing away to the Wolves, but I had always felt that we would have sufficient quality within the squad to come out on top.”
Danny had always been aware that the early season fixtures had been against the top sides in the competition, and that more winnable games were on the horizon, and so it has proved. The key factor, on this occasion, proved to be the Red Devils’ aggressive defence, throughout.
“We are proud of our defence, and as a result of it, the Wolves turned over possession to us on a number of occasions, which helped a lot. We also executed well on attack which in the conditions was most creditable. Some of the lads were also including some of the practices we have been working on in training, which was really good to see.”
It was a matter of only a few minutes before the visitors were on the scoreboard, when prop, Sam Eyres, used his strength and momentum on a good line to charge over to give fullback, Connor Law a successful conversion attempt. Indeed, Connor was to be on target with all four of his first half attempts.
Second row forward, Will Mills doubled the score shortly afterwards, when he supported a break to produce a two on one with which the Warrington fullback was unable to deal.
Hooker Connor Aspey was next up to add his name to the scoresheet, when he made a break to round the fullback and go between the posts, bringing the score 18-0 in the Red Devils’ favour.
Finally, Lewis Roberts finished off a smart attacking move which saw the ball moved from left to right along the line to give him space in his right centre berth to cross near to the corner. Law was again successful with what was clearly his most difficult attempt so far.
“It was a happy dressing room,at half-time, but alongside that it was a case of learning from the teams who had beaten us earlier, and how they had put a stranglehold on the game to ensure that we hadn’t had chance to get back into it in the second half. This time it was up to us to do likewise.”
Following upon this, therefore, it was unsurprising that within ten minutes of the resumption, they increased their lead even further with an unconverted try by scrum half, Kieran Prescott, following a ‘show and go’
Despite Warrington’s eventually clawing back four points, Dan Goddard completed the Salford account before the Wolves scored a late, converted try, shortly before the end of the game.
SALFORD TEAM
Connor Law, Ben Gore, Lewis Roberts, Joe Lawlor, Ellis Snelgrove, Callum Hughes, Kieran Prescott, Josh Bentley, Connor Aspey, Will Toone, Will Mills, James McKenna, Jon Cryer,
SUBSTITTUTES
Dan Goddard, Jak Fairbrother, Josh Henry, Austin Downham, Ben Whitely, Lewis Zammit, Shane Knight
