St Helens 27 Salford City Reds 26

Hmm, a bit of a tricky one to report on is this one. A switch of date from a Saturday evening to a Friday left me out of luck. Working until 7pm so I had to try & get some time off, sadly my request was denied. I tried all manner of excuses to get it approved but in the end I had to admit defeat. Of course in constantly badgering my boss to get the day off, I'd effectively ruled out the option of taking a sickie because with the fuss I'd kicked up no-one would forget that I'd wanted the day off to begin with so with heavy heart I had to sit this game out. I almost missed a game that would have become the stuff of legend amongst Salford fans.

Saints had a cup quarter-final to look forward to & therefore rested a few key players but the 17 they put out looked to be more than capable of seeing off even spirited resistance from our own basement dwellers & sure enough on arriving home & pouring myself a beer I turned on the radio to find us already behind to an early try. However, barely a swig of beer had passed my lips before my spirits were lifted by Stefan Ratchford scoring his 1st senior try for us & Wilshere's touchline conversion put us in front. Saints regained the advantage afew minutes later but it remained tight until the last 10 minutes of the half when 2 incredible length of the field interception tries by Wilshere & Hodgson (which were both converted) gave us a shock 18-10 lead. To say that I was dancing around the room would be a massive understatement for my solo goonage in front of the radio! My jubilation was quelled by an unconverted try by the champions just before the hooter. But still 18-14 at Knowseley Road, we'd take that at the turnaround that's for sure. But hang on, they've knocked on from the kick-off, Coley's picked it up & I can still hear GMR's Phil Kinsella's voice in my head as I type this "and Coley will score". Fucking hell, the hooter's gone now & I can barely take in that we're 22-14 up. My head was spinning!

My phone was white hot with text messages streaming through from Merseyside during the interval & I said to Walshy on one of them that the next try was crucial. So I'm sure tyou can imagine my response when after a tense opening 10-15 minutes we got the try through Johnny Wilshere. Barely had I pressed send on my latest message to Walshy before after an agonising period when we seemed to be continually stopping Saints only for them to keep the ball alive with a series of offloads, fatboy Cunningham went over to cut the deficit to 20-26. Just hold out lads, please. They did until 7 minutes from time when Gilmour went over & Sculthorpe's goal tied the scores. It was too much for me to take. I listened to about another 4 or 5 minutes but had to turn the radio off & put Sky's game on, waiting to see confirmation that we'd held on. No sooner had I put the game on when the caption I'd dreaded came up; 79mins St Helens 27 Salford City Reds 26. Fuck, arse, bollocks.

In no time another caption came up; Result St Helens 27 Salford City Reds 26. Devo'd! Only when Walshy & co texted me did I find out that straight after Matty Smith's winning drop goal, Robbo had hit the post with one of his own to deny us of the point that all observers reckoned was the least we deserved. Still with a new coach to come it was difficult not to be optimistic.