Quote ="Sesquipedalian"[size=150Salford V Wakefield: [/size
Mathers - 6 Cleaned up at the back and had a tidy game but offered little going forward dropped an inside ball with the line beckoning and still refuses to catch the ball on the full
Fox - 3 very slow to get back and cover the kick for Hocks try, dropped two clear cut chances, got caught infield in defence one time of which saw Meli clear down the wing until Godinet got across. Ran the ball out well from inside our 20
Collis - 7 was a thorn in Salfords side throughout, put his body on the line and looked dangerous without ever breaking free.
Keinhorst - 5 hard to judge due to losing him to injury but nothing glaringly good or bad
Lyne - 4 made some strong runs from Dummy Half late in the game but still fails to convince otherwise, reputedly has pace but fails to show it, big lad but never runs his weight and bombed a try late on with a poor attempt at catching a pass
Sykes - 6 Tackled well, did well linking play to his outside backs but a poor field and goal kicking performance kept us on the backfoot
Godinet - 8 Very good debut, crisp handling and decision making, hit Ryan with a lovely pass to send him over for a try. Looked alert and sharp leading to his intercept try, cover tackled well
Anderson - 6 Did what was expected of him, ran hard, ran often, found the ground on his front and tackled well throughout. I suspect there's more to come from him
McShane - 9 MotM Dummy half delivery was excellent, decision making re when to scoot and when to pass was spot on, often jumped out from dummy half and engaged 1st defender before passing, improved our kicking game no end
Smith - 6 A good performance from a very young front row, he made his yards and tackles and looked to trouble the bigger older Salford front row with his extra speed and footwork
Lauitiiti - 8.5 Ali did what Ali does, terrorised the Salford right edge who never really figured out how to stop him before he either made extra yards or popped an offload or scored a try. imposing presence throughout scored a try and one disallowed
Kirmond - 7 Defended well, ran hard and looked like making a bust but never got through cleanly, created a try scoring opportunity for Mathers in the 1st half with a nice offload on the inside, needs to stop cutting back infield all the time
Washbrook - 6 I'm sure the tackle count will have him top or near but just doesn't do enough for me, the trade off between losing his defence and someone else adding more size or flair would be worth it for me
Replacements:
Raleigh - 7 Took some big collisions head on but kept coming and often rolled away from the defender to find an extra yard or two, defended solidly and looks like he's playing himself back into form after his op
Ryan - 7 huge human. Hard for the opposition to get a grip with and took a lot of steam out of the Salford defence. Kept hitting good lines which brought him his try and did a long stint. Will get better as his conditioning improves
Tautai - 8.5 His best game by a mile, hard to stop, intelligent offloads, ran often and but in some brutal tackles that had spectators around me whincing. Controlled his emotions well which helped him eradicate the little errors that have blighted his game Would play him at 13 in future
Walshaw - 7 Played long minutes and looked solid throughout, defended very well and ran the ball strongly. Despite being a centre before he now looks and players like a back rower so credit to him for doing a good job'"
An excellent assessment Sesquipedalian, I totally agree with everything you said. There seems to be more of a controlled way about our play and I just sense that they aren't going to panic when they're pushing hard to get back when behind in a game. Looking forward to lot's more of the same and with Sammut to come in and Annakin when he's fit, things are looking a lot better than first thought when we lost our big name players.
