Thought it would be better to try and limit this to one topic.

Discuss.

Wigan had a 14th man on the field in the ref. Whoever was chanting Die Coley should be ashamed of themselves, the man is an idiot but that was too far. We put up a fight but the passing by the salford side (or lack of) was not particularly good. Disappointed but we'll survive. See how we get on next week.

Really difficult to pick a Salford man of the match - perhaps that's because Wigan didnt allow us to play. Can't think of a forward breaking a tackle.
We have surprised a few sides recently, but tonight, the gap between the sides showed - that's not to say Wigan play like that every week - but tonight they were far better than us.
I would say we defended well, but they scored 28 points. We rarely had the ball in attacking positions. We had two penalties where perhaps we should have kicked - we chose to run the ball and lost it on 1st or 2nd tackle.
It's a wide pitch and they used it well.
Still some work to do, but we knew that didn't we.

I thought Henry worked very hard for you tonight.

What are your thoughts on Alker? I've enjoyed seeing him play over his career but seems generally tired. His distribution from acting half back was very poor and there wasn't a hint of his usual running game.

Is he past it?

Totally agree about the Ref being there 14th man. Yet the Wigan fans think he was giving us everything

Listening to it on the radio, for about the last twenty minutes of the first half it sounded like every other set was concluded with a penalty on the kick return. Sounded like some really dumb plays from Salford.

Thought we did ok 1st half despite having little field position. The one time we did, we scored an excellent try but after that continued to trundle it up the middle.

The last 30 were a disaster. Once they'd scored the penalty and try to go 16-6 up we seemed to lose the plot. The kicking game was poor and defence out wide needs addressing. I think Wigan will be the team everyone wants to draw in the semis. I'd love to see one of our props skittle 3 defenders like pallaesina does though.

We were well and truly beaten in the forwards - Hock looked very good for them and, as usual, we didn't tackle Paleaaesina around the legs meaning we just couldn't bring him down.

I thought defensively we weren't as bad as the scoreline suggested and the effort was definitely there for a most of the match. We just didn't help ourselves with kicking out on the full twice and giving away a number of penalties. I think all 3 of Richards' tries were scored with the ball being spread from right to left and we just couldn't slide our defence over every time.

I thought Alibert let the game flow fairly well but he seemed to forget what a knock on is. Giving knock-ons for balls being lost backwards and not giving them when the ball was knocked on a few times(Richards' 2nd try looked like it came from a knock on as well)

The Coley chants were pretty sad and seemed to be sung just because we were losing.

I think we should try Smith at stand off again next week - Ratchford didnt have the best of games with his kicking.

Right... here goes....

Firstly I thought the effort was there tonight. The team worked hard... so fair play.

Secondly... we know... the referee was poor. Some of his decisions were ludicrous. However... I feel that all he did was give Wigan perhaps a slightly bigger winning margin than they would have had without him.

Reason... We weren't that good. Like I say... effort was there... but we just didn't have it both in attack and defence.

Our attacking options were limited. We took the ball down the middle on far too many occasions because we didn't have what it took out wide. When we did get it wide Talau took the wrong option on most occasions ... not what I expect from somebody with his kind of experience. We drove the ball back into the ruck to often.. and this was never going to work. We were too easy to work out... the try we scored was well worked, but after that Wigan were once bitten twice shy... and easily limited our small number of attacking options.

In defence we were nothing but dire on our right hand side. How we could be outnumbered on that side so many times is inexcusable. I know we were playing with a weakened right flank anyway, but there is no excuse for not being able to man up. We struggled all night with Paleaaesina and Hock... who were both made to look like world beaters at times. Hock is a very good player who sometimes defies his size with his step... but why are we allowing him to get into those positions. We should be learning as the game goes on... and we didn't.

The same ref that ruled out a nailed on try for McIlorum with the scores at 16-6? Worst call i've literally even seen.

Overall Alibert was very poor but for both sides and that comes as no suprise.

As for the game It was in the balance for quite a long period but thankfully our strike players like Hock and Tomkins stepped their games up and got us the win.

I didn't think Salford were anywhere near their best tonight which is a shame but i suppose it's a good experince for the younger players to build on. It's great to see so many of them preforming so well and bodes well for the future.

Good luck for the rest of the season.