Salford City Reds 6 Wigan Warriors 25

Yazz has been lying to us all these years. Sometimes the only way isn't up you know & this night was only ever going to prove that. Finishing work at 7pm meant a mad dash to The Willows was in order & arriving at 7:30'ish I decided that the best course of action would be to get in the ground asap & get a beer in there. Having queued at the turnstiles for an age, I was congratulating myself on a wise decision. However, when I saw the queue for a can of warm Carlsberg, I decided that abstinence would be the best course of action after all & got myself a burger instead. This, however, was definitely not a game to be watched in sobriety.

We started off fairly brightly, Korki had a couple of good carries & we looked to have more urgency across the park. Nevertheless, the pie-eaters got the first points on the board when Pat Richards slotted home a penalty. John Wilshere levelled things up for us but to be honest things could have been far worse with Wigan's handling letting them down frequently when the line was begging (Gareth Hock being a repeat offender), worse news came though when Mal Alker was helped off the pitch, if he goes off it must be a serious injury. Nevertheless we stayed in touch & as the clock counted down, I was reminded of last season's challenge cup encounter which was 0-0 at the turn-around before we ran out victorious. Such hopes were dashed when Thomas Leuluai's kick took a freakish bounce & Ganson missed a blatant push in the in-goal that allowed yawnion rent-boy Chris Ashton to give Wigan an 8-2 advantage. The decision not to go to the screen incensed the Salford players & Robbo made a point of walking out to the 20 metre line to watch the reply of the try before giving Ganson a look of disdain.

Any hopes that a sense of injustice might fire us up were quickly dashed; Wigan eased further in front with a Richards pen before the pube-headed high-tackling machine crashed over from Millard's short pass. The officials then conspired to miss 2 forward passes in a row which really shouldn't detract from the quality of the move that Mark Calderwood finished off. Further goalkicking from Richards & a Barrett drop increased the advantage to 25-2 before a late Buddha try in the corner added some ill-deserved gloss to a woeful performance against a Wigan side that still looks mediocre. If only I could apply a term like mediocre to some of our performances. Mark Edmondson (probably our most consistent forward of the season) was also lost to a nasty looking shoulder injury in the 2nd half.

Not surprisingly, the mood in the Tav post-game was very subdued. Not much to report from the rest of the night I'm afraid.