Jackson Hastings could make his final Salford appearance on Thursday night – but he insists he won’t let that thought cross his mind as he aims to keep the Red Devils on track for Old Trafford and a shot at the Grand Final before he leaves the club.
Defeat to Castleford in the play-offs this week would bring the curtain down on Hastings’ 18-month stay with Salford. They were narrowly beaten by his future club Wigan on Friday, meaning the Red Devils must now win successive games to reach the Grand Final for the first time.
And Hastings said that if he concerns himself with the fact that this could be his last game for Salford, his performance would suffer. “If I start thinking like that, I’ll play like that,” he said.
“I’ll be tentative and nervous. I can’t control that. What I’ve got to do is help my team-mates as much as possible. Just because we lost here doesn’t mean we’re done, by any stretch of the imagination.”
Hastings has also promised that Salford will respond positively after coming up short against Wigan, but giving an excellent account of themselves in the process last weekend.
“It was pretty good for a team that wasn’t supposed to get close,” he said. “There were a couple of key moments in there and for us it’s unlucky, but the scoreboard was in favour of Wigan and we’ve got to go the hard way now.
“We’re not happy we have to play a do-or-die game because we wanted a crack at St Helens. But we were beaten by Wigan and know what we’ve got to do. We’ve bounced back a few times this season so we’ll dust ourselves off and go again, there’s no danger of that whatsoever.”
