Paul Rowley called Salford’s performance in their 22-12 loss to Warrington their best of the season as his side pushed the visitors for more than 70 minutes.
The Salford head coach praised his side for their performances as they had opportunities to pull of their second win of a troubled campaign.
As he said: “We’re disappointed to lose the game, but I thought we competed, and we wouldn’t be walking out embarrassed if we’d won the game. I thought it was quite evenly matched most of the game.”
During the game, Warrington took an early lead through Matt Dufty and suggested that the Red Devils may face a similar scoreline that they saw against St Helens.
However, as Warrington were unable to build on it – Salford were able to take a shock lead with Ethan Ryan’s try, two penalties from Chris Hankinson putting them 8-6 into the lead.
But their advantage lasted only three minutes as Warrington again found a way of cracking open the centre of the Salford line, with a quick off-load from Ben Currie leaving Harrison with the easy task of touching down in space.
Former Salford man Sam Stone, booed relentlessly by home fans after his acrimonious departure earlier in the year, was the next Warrington man to concede a penalty early in the second half, allowing Hankinson to cut the deficit to two.
Dufty was stopped inches short of the line as Warrington tried to take advantage of the gap left with Salford skipper Ryan Brierley down injured and tensions started to rise as scuffles broke out between the players more than once.
Salford were piling on the pressure, and it told as Hankinson levelled it with another penalty and Wolves frustration continued as another poor pass from Williams wasted a scoring opportunity.
But they had shifted the momentum of the game and made it count on the hour, with Josh Thewlis diving on to Dufty’s bouncing kick to score in the corner, though Sneyd could not make the difficult conversion.
Salford thought they had a quick response as Esan Marsters pounced on a dropped ball from Jake Thewlis to touch down, but referee Liam Rush had spotted a tackle in the air from Ryan.
Sneyd then kicked a penalty to pad Warrington’s lead and Salford’s chance at victory was gone when Ratchford capitalised on a drop from Marsters late on.
But less than a week after a 58-0 rout at the hands of St Helens, it was an encouraging night for troubled Salford, as Paul Rowley said after the game.
“A couple of weeks ago I’d talked about some green shoots against Hull, though we got overwhelmed in the second half, but today we hung in and it was probably as good a performance as we’ve had.
“There were some really good things for us. We dominated territory in the first half in particular. But credit to Warrington, they got the job done and that’s, I guess, all it’s about sometimes. But there’s something for us to work with and build on.”
And Salford will look to build on this result as they play Castleford Tigers, on the Saturday 13 July – more information can be found here.
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