Definition of a wins a win.



Looked poor for last 20 but hung on.



Stevie Ward continues to worry me despite a well taken try....

Ward was looking really good until the first drop, then he let it effect him. I was more worried about Kylie on the back of last week also. Hope it isn't a repeat of last year, new contract in pocket so relax.



Was impressed with Minchela tonight. Showed good potential. Singleton looked good also.



Hall looked way out of it, and a liability for us, and surprisingly no go forward either.



Don't know how they got MOM, as personally all things considered, I would have gone Ablett or JJB.

Yeah Ward got a good try but lost possession twice cheaply, and neither had to do with how he's utilised as a battering ram.



Bit of a strange game to evaluate. We were again sharper in attack compared to 3/4 weeks ago but could've had a better final product. In defence the scramble was reminiscent of the start of the year but the lack of slowing down the PTB was really bad.



Thought we always had enough IF we weren't guilty of too many handling errors.....but we almost were. 12-6 after 63 mins against us I think I read.



As for individuals.



Briscoe shone, perhaps Watkins should just pass to him straight away at times instead of the step first?

Moon again didn't shine.

Walters didn't so much but Minchella I thought went well.

Singleton went well, Peacock not so much, neither Aiton.

Hardaker, even though he couldn't stop the 3rd try he's still so important both in attack and defence, (he stopped one later on that rolled into touch)

Very, very patchy performance. Not sure how Burrow got man-of-the-match - none of our halves shone.



On the positives, Hardaker again saved some blushes with his defence, Briscoe looks to be getting his confidence back (just as Hall is losing his again), Singleton had his best game for ages and thought JJB had a really good all-round game, MoM for me.

Re slowing down the ptb. We've been getting off the tackled player very quickly all season so far, which is why it annoys me in games when the opposition hold down and aren't penalised for it.

Thought Ward did ok, can't remember if one of his "knock-ons" was one of Silverwoods dodgy decisions.

Walters was very good in my opinion, did masses of defence and was often willing to run onto the ball from deep.

JJB very good also.

Peacock superb except for being slow at marker for their last try.



We made a few too many errors (though we got nothing from the ref which didn't help) but I thought overall it was pretty good against a good and enthusiastic Salford side.

Agreed it's a strange one. Should we risk the wrath of a penalty or be careful???



TBF too often we don't dominate the tackle enough to earn us the right to slow things down.....but even when we do we seem to pop up in a rush to avoid a penalty.



Think this along with the conservative attack of one man rugby is a planned risk free approach to stop giving opposition cheap and easy yards high up the pitch with knock ons and penalties.



But as we saw tonight, even risk free the ball can come free and lose possession in a bad place.

Ref again poor some ridiculous calls.

That aside our marker defence is weak , their last try was pathetic defence, and although we deserved the win we kept them in it imo.

We played some good stuff at times but daft offloads and errors at crucial times are becoming worrying. From a defensive perspective all our problems stem from our inability to control the ruck and with the one on one missed tackles close to our own creeping in it means we allow teams a way back into the game.

I thought Aiton coming back on in the 2nd half was the turning point. We were in total control with Burrow causing lots of problems around the ruck but Aiton came on and slowed the Leeds PTB down, and gave a aft penalty away on the 5th tackle which allowed Salford to steady the ship. He also has a very bad habit of flying out of the line ala JJB. The jury is still out on him IMO.

I'd rest JP next week, he will always give the team the same work rate every week regardless but I didn't think he seemed that effective, I'd bring Delaney into the front row for JP and I'd drop Kylie to the bench in place of Singleton. Kylie again was average in his first stint and much better in his 2nd so playing him off the bench may mean he's fresher and more effective.

No doubt Ward will take some stick for the 2 knock ons but up until that point he was carrying the ball quite wll I thought.

The Ward 1st knock on it was clearly a grapple before and the slo mo shot from behind showed Sau's hand in at the ball!

All the tell tale issues were again in evidence.



3rd/4th, no silverware.

This area seems a bit of lottery to me at the moment. You see teams getting away with all sorts of infringements for the majority of the game and then the ref will penalise a team for something that seems relatively innocuous in comparison to what's gone before. I thought the same thing happened to Salford when we were carrying the ball out away from our line in the 2nd half.