Saints suffer shock loss at the Willows: Salford 20 Saints 10 (From St Helens Star)

Saints suffer shock loss at the Willows: Salford 20 Saints 10

9:38pm Friday 3rd July 2009

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(1)

Saints were outmuscled and out-thought by Shaun McRae’s Salford at the Willows to go down to their first away defeat in 17 outings.

Nothing went right for Saints, who were beaten up front and at half back.

But when they did create chances they invariably came up with an error.

Saints went into the game missing skipper Keiron Cunningham and the experienced Matt Gidley, Jon Wilkin and Leon Pryce.

It certainly affected their start at the Willows with the league leaders up against it from the off.

Salford took the lead after five minutes when Jeremy Smith’s grubber outfoxed Paul Wellens, who was unable to deal with it near to the posts, allowing scrum half Stefan Ratchford to steal in for a touchdown.

John Wilshere added the straightforward goal to increase Reds’ lead to six points.

Remarkably they doubled that lead with another try from a kick to the posts, with Ratchford hitting the post padding with his smartly placed punt. The ball rebounded into the arms of the advancing full back Wilshere who shovelled the ball into the grateful arms of the supporting Ratchford. Wilshere again goaled and Saints had it all to do.

It was all Salford and from another penalty, this time for holding down, put the Reds on the attack again. A series of swift passes resulted in centre Darrell Goulding crossing out on the left – despite there being a hint of a forward pass in the build up.

Wilshere missed the goal this time, but Reds had a 16-0 cushion with less than a quarter of the game gone.

Saints had a chance to get into the game, but unfortunately substitute Maurie Fa’asavalu dropped the ball with his first touch as they pounded the line.

Saints won a penalty after Fa’asavalu had the ball dislodged in a tackle but a promising position was again wasted with a handling error, with stand off Kyle Eastmond knocking on 10 metres out.

The visitors continued to press and Eastmond and Fa’asavalu both went close, with the latter losing the ball trying to get it over the line.

Saints’ best chance of the half came in a move sparked by Eastmond down the left, which culminated in Ade Gardner racing into the corner only to lose the ball in the process of scoring.

Saints needed to post an early response after the restart and they did that when Sean Long pierced the line, broke through and turned the ball back inside for the supporting Andrew Dixon to cross.

Eastmond goaled to cut the deficit to 10 points and it was game on again.

Salford were then reduced to 12 ment when Smith was sin-binned for taking a swing at Wellens as he retrieved the ball from behind the posts.

Eastmond broke through and used his pace to race downfield, turning the ball back inside to debutant Jamie Ellis. However, with a clear field ahead, the youngster lost the ball. Saints were hit by the sucker punch with with Mark Henry touching down another kick in the corner, despite protestations from the travelling fans behind the sticks who had a good view of the incident.

When Saints lost Sean Long, who raised his hand to leave the field holding his face after taking a bang it was clearly one of those nights.

Saints could not do anything right with the game littered with some poor handling as they tried to penetrate a tough tackling Reds defence.

Saints had the last word when Ellis launched a good attacking kick wide which was collected by Francis Meli, who wrestled hi way over to put the visitors into double figures.But it was too little too late.

Salford: Wilshere; Henry, Littler, Goulding, McGilvray; Smith, Ratchford; Cashmere, Alker, Stapleton, Adamson, Sidlow, Swain. Subs: Leuluai, Jewitt, Walton, Paul.

St Helens: Wellens; Gardner, Flannery, Dean, Meli; Eastmond, Long; Graham, Roby, Hargreaves, Ashurst, Puletua, Gilmour. Subs: Fa’asavalu, Ellis, Dixon, Clough.

Att: 4,808

• Print
• Email
• Share
• Comments(1)