Salford RLFC caretaker boss Dave Hewitt was full of praise for his “outstanding” side after they fell to a narrow 28-22 defeat against Halifax Panthers.
Hewitt, who took over from former head coach Mike Grady on 24 March, said the game signified a “new approach and new journey” as his team came within a score of Halifax under the lights at the CorpAcq stadium.
Halifax edged it with more quality on the night in what was an entertaining game in front of a lively crowd.
Both teams struggled to get a grasp of the game in the opening exchanges on a chilly evening.
A penalty was awarded to Salford in their own half early on following a high tackle on Matty Ross, but his disappointment resulted in a knock on.
Hewitt’s men took the lead after eight minutes when Ollie Garmston powered over to open the scoring, however, the subsequent conversion was missed by Jack Gatcliffe.
An outstanding piece of defending from Jack Bibby denied Halifax’s captain Ben Crooks following a darting run down the left wing.
Salford then extended their lead with some clever dribbling from hooker and captain Brad Dwyer. On this occasion, Gatcliffe scored the conversion to make it 10-0.
That advantage wouldn’t last for long, however, as Halifax responded with a try of their own from prop Will Calcott.
The away supporters became louder as Ben Tibbs equalised for the Panthers to even the scores at 10-10.
The match was seemingly heading towards a stalemate at the interval until Ben Crooks sliced through the Salford defence to score two minutes before the break and Darius Carter added a conversion to give the away side a 16-10 lead.
Halifax made an impressive start to the second half with Owen McCarron’s try giving Salford a mountain to climb.
But Hewitt’s men refused to surrender too easily as hooker Fin Yates cut the deficit.
Gatcliffe kicked the resulting conversion, which reduced the Panthers’ lead to six with 27 minutes left to play.
But Panthers’ McCarron then re-established the lead with a try late on, getting his second of the game.
Salford continued their respectable effort as Bibby scored a try with two minutes on the clock, however it wasn’t enough.
The defeat means Salford have now lost four straight games, but after the match, Hewitt was full of praise for his side.
He said: “I thought it was a massive start and we focused on that, to be honest, in terms of the last few games, we probably didn’t start as well as we could have. But yeah, I couldn’t be more proud of the start. I thought the start was outstanding.
“We spoke about their back five being a massive threat for them and getting them on the front foot. But I thought we handled them really well, like you said, in that first 20-25 minutes and we reaped the rewards and went obviously two scores up. But yeah, Halifax are Halifax, an established team and I just knew they were never going to go away.
“We lost a bit of momentum in the game and obviously that turned and they started kicking a lot better, kicking well, just forced us with a few errors.
“We’ve probably not got to concentrate on the results more than anything, more performances. And I thought the performance today was kind of We’ve raised the bar to another level tonight, I thought, and we’ve just got to take that in now, week on week, and as we progress and move forward.”
