SALFORD RED DEVILS went down 26-0 to the Leigh Leopards this afternoon in game one of Magic Weekend’s second day.
The Red Devils were second best throughout, trailing 12-0 at half-time before capitulating in the last ten minutes to concede 12 more points.
For Salford boss Paul Rowley, he was bitterly disappointed, saying: “You can’t play with 11 men and our discipline on both sides of the ball was poor.
“The damage was done in that period and physically it was difficult for us and took its toll in the end.”
Rowley had no complaints about the sinbinnings handed to Brad Singleton and Ethan Ryan for high tackles.
“I think as long as they are consistent and you see those sort of tackles penalised in the same manner then nobody can have any complaints.
“I will concentrate on what we can do and can control. When you lose one man you are covering more space and you are always at risk of losing another in that scenario because you are not in control.
“It would be easy to whinge and blame but we should control ourselves a bit better.”
The Salford boss also revealed that Ryan Brierley was taken off due to tactical reasons, not injury reasons.
“Ryan Brierley wasn’t injured, the ruck was incredibly slow throughout the game. Chris Hankinson brings us energy and we wanted to speed up the ruck.
“I thought Leigh did a fantastic job of doing that. That made it very difficult for us to attack. It was never the pretty stuff that would get us the win today, it was the fundamentals.”
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