29 Aug: SL: Salford Red Devils v Warrington Wolves KO 7.45pm (TV)

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, johnh1 said:

And what is wrong with that, Dave? I think it’s great.

Aye, thought you might!!!!

[Dave T]

8 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

It's absolutely not the same as a Sun- Fri turnaround. Those players put their heart, soul and every fibre of their being into that cup final. They threw everything they physically could at the Saints.

That occasion, emotion and the drain on the body and mind that comes with it does not happen every week. Many of those players might not play in a cup final ever again, they threw everything into it. Asking them then play at Salford in a crucial league game 5 days later is utterly ridiculous.

It's clearly not amazing, but if we were so worried about player safety, there are other things the club could do before co sidering refusing to play.

[Just Browny]

8 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

It's absolutely not the same as a Sun- Fri turnaround. Those players put their heart, soul and every fibre of their being into that cup final. They threw everything they physically could at the Saints.

That occasion, emotion and the drain on the body and mind that comes with it does not happen every week. Many of those players might not play in a cup final ever again, they threw everything into it. Asking them then play at Salford in a crucial league game 5 days later is utterly ridiculous.

I saw an RL journo tweet that it was Warrington's fault if they over-celebrated. Hmm, maybe - but is that the game we want to offer to our players? "Come and play rugby league and win trophies.. as long as you are happy to be in bed by 7pm the night after the final."

I am pleased and proud that the club laid on a proper homecoming for the players and fans on Monday, and celebrated the success. No chance of winning on the Thursday against a rested side though.

[Man of Kent]

2 hours ago, ELBOWSEYE said:

This is not a criticism of Salford they have done brilliant this season, the two times they beat us at home we deserved to be criticised, but not tonight, what you write tonight says more about you and your petty trolling of Warrington. 

Not being funny but if you watch it back with both eyes open you’ll see what I mean.

Being charitable, maybe Warrington were just going through the motions to get the fixture over and done with? They should not have been playing so soon after Wembley, totally agree with those sentiments.

[Dave T]

8 minutes ago, Just Browny said:

I saw an RL journo tweet that it was Warrington's fault if they over-celebrated. Hmm, maybe - but is that the game we want to offer to our players? "Come and play rugby league and win trophies.. as long as you are happy to be in bed by 7pm the night after the final."

I am pleased and proud that the club laid on a proper homecoming for the players and fans on Monday, and celebrated the success. No chance of winning on the Thursday against a rested side though.

I have no issues with our approach, and agree that we should celebrate the good times, as we take the bad times hard. It's pretty rubbish that we have to play on Thursday, maybe the next round can be treated like the round after Easter where there is no Thurs game.

But, I dont think we have too much of a leg to stand on with player welfare if we allow our players to celebrate for 3 days. Sure, argue the RL reasons, but if we as a club were genuinely concerned about welfare, we would probably have used a couple more kids and had the homecoming on the Sunday like previous years.

FWIW, I thought we stood up well last night. We literally gifted two tries and was poor for one other. 

[Dave T]

14 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Not being funny but if you watch it back with both eyes open you’ll see what I mean.

Being charitable, maybe Warrington were just going through the motions to get the fixture over and done with? They should not have been playing so soon after Wembley, totally agree with those sentiments.

I dont think last night is representative of anything to be fair. The 5 straight league losses, and the 11 SL losses prior to this are fair game for criticism.

[Man of Kent]

Just now, Dave T said:

I dont think last night is representative of anything to be fair. The 5 straight league losses, and the 11 SL losses prior to this are fair game for criticism.

Didn’t see much difference from the Wigan game TBH, ie five drives and a kick.

Where are the attacking shapes, the running lines, the creativity? I expect better from a club with the resources of Warrington.

[Dave T]

1 minute ago, Man of Kent said:

Didn’t see much difference from the Wigan game TBH, ie five drives and a kick.

Where are the attacking shapes, the running lines, the creativity? I expect better from a club with the resources of Warrington.

I'm not going to spend any time arguing against that point as I have made my views perfectly clear on our style of play.

But there were clear reasons for our performance last night.

[Just Browny]

28 minutes ago, Man of Kent said:

Didn’t see much difference from the Wigan game TBH, ie five drives and a kick.

Where are the attacking shapes, the running lines, the creativity? I expect better from a club with the resources of Warrington.

Has your cat got over Wembley yet?

[Exiled Wiganer]

9 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

They should refuse to play. It's not safe and it devalues the league competition. 

I'd have loved it if Wire had refused to play tonight.

Did you post this the year Wigan went and beat Saints away the Thursday after Wembley? Saturday - Thursday gives a full time team of pros plenty of time if they consider it important enough. 

[Dave T]

7 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

Did you post this the year Wigan went and beat Saints away the Thursday after Wembley? Saturday - Thursday gives a full time team of pros plenty of time if they consider it important enough. 

What year was this EW?

Edit. If it is 2017 you refer to, that was the Friday night game. That is comparable to Saints playing tonight.

[Man of Kent]

8 minutes ago, Just Browny said:

Has your cat got over Wembley yet?

I’ve got no skin in the game other than being a Sky punter.

Warrington play tedious football. 

[Exiled Wiganer]

5 minutes ago, Dave T said:

What year was this EW?

After we lost to FC. 

[Dave T]

Just now, Exiled Wiganer said:

After we lost to FC. 

Thanks, but that was the Friday, as above.

[Exiled Wiganer]

2 minutes ago, Dave T said:

Thanks, but that was the Friday, as above.

I beg your pardon. I will do more research, but will stand by the point that it is possible to play Saturday and Thursday and win. It is not easy, and not “fair”,  and can see it is annoying, but if Wire had wanted to enough they could have focussed very narrowly on this game. Indeed, given that they have lost at least one other game against Salford, there is nothing to suggest they wouldn’t have lost with a longer break. I am in the “suck it up and re watch last Saturday’s game” camp as opposed to the “someone will get killed, it’s a disgrace” camp. 

[FullFat]

1 hour ago, Dave T said:

It's clearly not amazing, but if we were so worried about player safety, there are other things the club could do before co sidering refusing to play.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this Dave.  What more could they have done? Backing up from a major final is so different than from a normal Superleague game. If you don't let the players celebrate after a final then there would probably be an emotional hangover anyway.   The parade and media duty are all part of raising the profile of the club and perhaps bringing it to the attention of new sponsors and fans.   It's also a reward for the fans who have poured their heart, soul & money into following the club. I think Warrington did all they could, they rested 7 of the team, inevitably this had an effect on the performance and that was unavoidable in these circumstances.

I'm sure the club didn't let them go on the lash for 3 days.  But they would have celebrated the night of the final, they're away from home so no access to their usual facilities the day after - so no recovery treatments as they would normally have had.  No training/recovery on the Monday due to the parade.   I just cannot see what the club could do differently without spoiling the occasion for both the fans and the players.

Common sense should dictate that neither finalist should play less than 7 days before and after the final.  As it stands Sky's fixture shenanigans has given Salford an advantage over their rivals in the race for playoff places.

[Dave T]

20 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I beg your pardon. I will do more research, but will stand by the point that it is possible to play Saturday and Thursday and win. It is not easy, and not “fair”,  and can see it is annoying, but if Wire had wanted to enough they could have focussed very narrowly on this game. Indeed, given that they have lost at least one other game against Salford, there is nothing to suggest they wouldn’t have lost with a longer break. I am in the “suck it up and re watch last Saturday’s game” camp as opposed to the “someone will get killed, it’s a disgrace” camp. 

I'm in the same campmates, as you'll see from .y posts here.

I'm surprised SLE are good with this though, Elstone loves the phrase 'competition integrity' - there are a couple of easy solutions. Either have no Thurs game on this round, or commit to not using the finalists.

[Harry Stottle]

I thought that Wire put in a spirited performance, there was nothing wrong at all with the fitness of those who took the field for them, plenty of effort and commitment was displayed, but that was the all they could offer, there was more Rugby League finesse in a under 8's team, it was literally catch the ball tuck it under your arm and run. It was not as though Price had been round the pub's in Warrington and asked 'does anyone want a game tonight' and they met for the first time on the car park, there were many seasoned SL players in that Wire team, with more than enough expierience to perform much, much better than they did, does Price have a seperate training and tactic session with his best starting 17 only and the rest go and play tick and pass on their own somewhere? His after match comments that he was proud of them, I will agree with him as I said for effort, but the rest of the performance was an indictment of his coaching.

 

[Rupert Prince]

10 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

They should refuse to play. It's not safe and it devalues the league competition. 

I'd have loved it if Wire had refused to play tonight.

Of course it is safe.  Several teams have had her long injury lists and played.  Huddersfield?

Wire had available a fresh, very expensive RU convert able to come in and play.  All Wire players had to do on Saturday night was go to bed early and count their bonus money.

[Rupert Prince]

31 minutes ago, Exiled Wiganer said:

I beg your pardon. I will do more research, but will stand by the point that it is possible to play Saturday and Thursday and win. It is not easy, and not “fair”,  and can see it is annoying, but if Wire had wanted to enough they could have focussed very narrowly on this game. Indeed, given that they have lost at least one other game against Salford, there is nothing to suggest they wouldn’t have lost with a longer break. I am in the “suck it up and re watch last Saturday’s game” camp as opposed to the “someone will get killed, it’s a disgrace” camp. 

Plus Wire have been rubbish all the way to Wembley since the Semi.  Playing rubbish last night was par for the course.  

The big story really is that  Salford were rubbish, especially in 1st half.  They needed a crass dropped kick by Wire to give Salford a leg up.

[Rupert Prince]

18 minutes ago, Dave T said:

I'm in the same campmates, as you'll see from .y posts here.

I'm surprised SLE are good with this though, Elstone loves the phrase 'competition integrity' - there are a couple of easy solutions. Either have no Thurs game on this round, or commit to not using the finalists.

This is indeed quite fair. 

The SKY fixtures have plenty time to be worked out after the semis.  Plus if such games as last night turn out to be rubbish then it's hard to see why SKY would want to transmit such rubbish and prefer something more interesting.

[Segovia Carpet]

Typical anti SRD comment from Rupe.

The game plan was quite clear - Tough defence in First Half with no frills -  Open Up Second half with thrills.

The lads followed the plan to the letter.

I don`t think many sides will relish meeting Salford in the Play Offs - That is if we get there. 

[Harry Stottle]

 Can I please point out Good Friday and Easter Monday and then some teams have backed up again on Friday night.

Barring injuries, I can't see why fit young men who play Rugby League for a living and are conditioned and train FULL TIME in preperation to play the game cannot back up on Thursday after playing Saturday, and even allowing for a night on the pop, after all as I said they are very fit young men whose recovery time from alcohol will be much shorter that men not as fit or and or much older.

I would also say, if they carry on celebrating long after Saturday and knowingly they have a game on Thursday that attitude is not at all very professional, those player's who would do that have no respect for those fan's who would have dug deeper into their pockets to go and support them last night.

[DoubleD]

That was certainly a game for the purists, a bit of a slog at times. Why Sky thought it was a good idea to showcase Warrington when they knew they were in the final is beyond me. They really should’ve chosen another fixture for the Thursday. Hardly great entertainment for the neutral. 

On the plus side, the AJ Bell stadium looked fuller than I’ve seen it, particularly impressive on a Thursday. Hats off to the Devils.

[John Boriston]

I remember 79 when we beat em at Headingley, you know in the days before it  became a Rhino Park.

It was full of chunnering Loiners giving us grief.

Anyway onto next week's game and to paraphrase the Mike Tyson chat-up line:

'A draw would be nice, a win would be even better'.