Salford Red Devils faced off against top of the table Catalans Dragons tonight in the South of France, with Paul Rowley’s men looking to push towards the playoffs and distance themselves from eighth placed Leeds Rhinos.
As for the Dragons they’d been done a favour earlier in the day with Wigan Warriors defeating Leigh Leopards, allowing the Dragons to stretch their lead atop the table to four points should they win.
Winning at home is a strong point of the Dragons as prior to today they had won eight of their ten games at the Stade Gilbert Brutus, with the only defeats being a recent shock defeat to Huddersfield Giants and an early season loss to as then top of the table Warrington Wolves.
As for the Red Devils their form was dropping off with four consecutive losses heading into the game, and with it their playoff chances were slipping.
Part of that had been down to their injury issues with plenty of their spine suffering injuries lately including Marc Sneyd who was again missing today.
As for the Dragons it was their full-back Arthur Mourgue who remained out but with Sam Tomkins there to deputise they had a more than adequate replacement.
The deadlock wasn’t broken until the 20th minute at which point Wigan-bound Adam Keighran collecting a grubber kick to touch down and open the scoring.
Just before the half hour mark the versatile Australian had his second of the game and in similar fashion, once again collecting a grubber kick. He also kicked both conversions to spread the game to 12-0.
At this point the game went from bad to worse with top try scorer Tom Johnstone crossing over in the corner, and almost on the hooter Samoan half Tyrone May stepped and danced through to make the game 22-0 after 40 minutes.
What happened next was quite bizarre with Paul Rowley then giving his team talk to the Red Devils on the pitch from the middle of the centre circl, something that was reminiscent of former Hull City Football Club’s boss Phil Brown.
Whatever Paul Rowley said, and whatever reasons for his strange team talk tactic, it didn’t elicit the response he wanted with the Dragons extending the game to a four converted try lead thanks to an Adam Keighran penalty just five minutes into the half.
Johnstone then bagged his second minutes later before another Wigan bound man in Tiaki Chan crossed over to make the scoreline a whopping 34-0.
Catalans then went down to 12 men with Tom Davies sent to the bin for a professional foul of holding down to stop a breaking Joe Burgess but that didn’t help the Red Devils as they failed to capitalise.
Tomkins added another two from the tee during that period and then once Davies had returned to the field the Dragons added another try with Sam Tomkins crossing over himself.
That brought up the 1500 point tally in his career for the former England skipper and extended the lead to 42-0 for the Dragons, who firmly cemented their status at the top of the table.
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