Salford City Reds 24 Hull Kingston Rovers 30

The term "a massive game" is regularly trotted out in the lead ups to sporting contests, but rarely has the phrase seemed so fitting. Without a doubt this one was huge. Still a point adrift at the bottom (but no longer with a game in hand), this fixture provided us with a chance to move off the relegation place for the 1st time since April, surely the lads would be bang up for this one. I know I was, I could barely sleep in the build up to the game, constantly worrying about what the outcome would mean to our future. A chance encounter with Mal Alker in the Trafford Centre 48 hours prior to kick-off eased my nerves slightly as Mal seemed a whole lot more relaxed about the game than I was. Nevertheless, I had to take a half-day for this game, quite a lot of beer was going to be needed to calm the nerves.

After a quick one in the Eccles Cross, I took a tram to the Quays to meet up with the lads in Exchange bar. A couple of decent games of killer followed as I proceeded to make the cue appear like a wand in my hand, taking the winnings gleefully (one particularly nice pot lead to Bobby proclaiming "he's rolling back the years here Yorkie")! After that we headed to the Quay House for a couple more beers & some time on the quiz machine before taking the tram back to Weaste & the short walk to the ground.

Arriving in the area with so long still to go to kick-off, we spotted Luke Dorn & Haggy in a car at the lights & attempted to gee them up a little earlier roaring encouragement across the street to
them. One thing was for certain, with thousands of KR fans expected to make the journey across, we would need to get behind the team big-style tonight. The church hall was relatively empty when we arrived & got our drinks but within 30 minutes the queue for the bar stretched out of the front door so we decided that it was time to move on. The Tavern wasn't allowing away fans in (which given the tales that were flying round of trouble in The Weaste may have been a smart move) so that seemed the obvious option.

After a quick pint in the Tav it was time to make our way into the ground. The shed was filling up nicely & so was the North Stand end with hordes of KR supporters, all of which served to exacerbate the butterflies in my belly. There were a few team changes evident with Hodgy & Highto back fit & Leuluai added to the bench despite having only arrived 2 days prior. Both sides had their moments in the early exchanges but it was the Reds who broke the deadlock with a long ball from Robbo allowing Barnett to claim his first Salford try out wide before Wilshere added a great kick.

This seemed to relax us a little & we then had a good spell of pressure culminating in Coley failing to ground the ball under pressure. As KR looked to take a quick tap, Coley caught the ball and ran back to the defensive line with it, sin-binning. It would prove costly, when he returned 10 minutes later we were 10-6 in arrears. The lively Webster made a break & fed O'Neill who despite losing his footing managed to scramble to his feet & just ground the ball. Then Coke stepped through the defence & stretched over to get the ball down.

Hull KR missed another couple of opportunities before, against the run of play, a lovely ball by Haggerty put Finnigan clear & over. Wilshere's conversion gave us the lead back which we would take into half-time with us. The feeling was that we had to play better in the 2nd half but that at least we'd looked more like scoring than the visitors when we had the ball in the red zone. Surely with all that was at stake we would step up & take the game by the scruff of the neck.

Sadly the desire in the 2nd half came from the visitors who spent most of the game camped in our half. We held out for just 5 minutes before once again Webster was the provider for O'Neill to regain the advantage. A horrendous 5 minute spell saw firstly Lennon & then Dyer go in for soft tries for the Yorkshiremen and at 28-12 we looked beaten. We got a glimmer when Robbo kicked through a napping Rovers defensive line for Moule to touch down before Cooke's penalty left us still 12 points behind. With the seconds ticking down a good break from Wilshere saw Hodgson go over out wide & with barely no time to set himself, Wilshere added a fantastic conversion to leave us back within 6 and about 1 minute left to work the miracle comeback. Sadly, from the kick-off, Korki would knock on & the dream would fall flat.

There was no shortage of tears on the Shed that night. The importance of the game was lost on no-one & walking round to the Tavern I felt physically sick. No-one was even in the mood for gallows humour after this game, just a horrible air of resignation to our fate & seeing Parky spending most of the night with his head on the bar too disconsolate to even speak, I could only feel anger & resentment at the players who had once again failed to perform when the situation demanded at the very least a bit of pride. We hadn't even summoned up that, pitiful.