The Chair Maker wrote:
Those walsh tackles were down to brilliant play by Wellens. He really did position his self well to force the winger to slow down and adjust which allowed Walsh to chase back and effect the tackle.
Give over. How brilliant is positioning yourself in the right centre channel when the right winger is breaking on the half way line? It's not rocket science and nothing every other professional fullback wouldn't do. I'll tell you what, Wello's tackling was woeful tonight.
To be fair to him other than that he had a decent game. He runs good lines and against terrible sides like Salford he will still be effective running close to the line off the back of Walsh. He's a clever player and would have been a sensational player if he had any pace. Whilst him playing when Lomax is injured is okay, it's clearly not an option to leave him there, still killing moves tonight jogging onto balls out wide and putting the breaks on the momentum of the move.
Tonight showed just how pathetic Super League is. You could tell from the warm up that neither side was at all bothered about the game and it showed throughout as 34 players went through the motions with no real enthusiasm for the contest anywhere. Salford had no intention of beating us, just slowing everything down and avoiding a hammering. Their holding down, the number of high shots and the niggling was ridiculous. The refereeing was utterly embarassing tonight, he had no control over anything and the whole thing was shambolic. Salford should be ashamed of themselves, we had 1 player on the bench for most of the game and they put us under very little pressure. By the final 20 minutes we had several players on the field who were clearly injured, but they didn't seem to care about that or try to exploit it. At one stage Wheeler could barely walk and was defending alone on the blind side of the scrum. Be clever and run at him? No, go the other way and walk into a tackle one out. The players walked to scrums, had a drink, had a chat. When someone scored they did the same, taking an age to line up again.
The game kicked off at 8. The England game kicked off at 8 and Warrington's game did. England's game was 5 minutes longer due to the sport involved and Warrington's was on Sky with video ref calls. Saints game finished well after both of those games at gone ten to. Had that game been on Sky with video ref replays we'd probably still be there now.
As for how we played, better defensively tonight and ultimately a decent shift from the pack given the lack of a bench due to injuries. Wilkin was having an absolute stinker before he went off, the worst I've ever seen him play, although I found his lack of faith in Wello's pace particularly funny, not trusting him to make it from 20 yards out unopposed. Roby and Walsh were the stand outs for me but there were decent shifts from LMS, Thompson, Sia, Masoe.