It has been a huge weekend of action, Leeds Rhinos battled Wigan Warriors, Leigh Leopards battled St Helens but today Warrington Wolves and Salford Red Devils met in a game that could have defined their hopes of playing play off rugby.
Warrington came up short in golden point extra time thanks to a Sam Stone try in golden point after a Joe Burgess break down the wing.
After the game Gary Chambers was forced to address what went wrong on Channel 4.
He said: “I think we lost some ball in crucial periods, knock ons in contact. That didn’t go our way and Salford kept themselves more composed than us.”
He added:
“We were clunky and everyone can see that/ We have strung some decent attacking performances together the last couple of weeks and we didn’t hit our best form.
“We are still learning, we have a short turn around and we go again.”
In the heat with two open and attacking sides meeting you always expected a lot of points in the meeting between the two and it only took a matter of minutes until we saw the opening try as a kick from Josh Drinkwater was fumbled by George Burgess straight into the hands of Matty Nicholson to score.
Salford looked to hit back straight away and gave the ball to Deon Cross in space. He cut inside squeezed through and went to ground the ball. There was a suspicion that he had dropped the ball so it was sent up to the video referee as a try where it was determined he had been tackled so a penalty was awarded.
There was another try disallowed at the other end when Paul Vaughan twisted and turned his way towards the try line but as he reached over he lost control of the ball.
This gave Salford the chance to level matters when after a Peter Mata’utia knock on a good line from Ben Hellewell allowed the backrower to carve through and score.
Warrington had the chance to move further clear when they kicked the ball wide and it was batted back to George Williams. He volleyed it but it went dead. Had he caught it or hit it with less venom it would have been a certain try.
They were made to regret that as a Stefan Ratchford error then allowed Brodie Croft to score a simple try.
But straight after the break Warrington hit back with a try that was just like their first as the ball was dropped by Ken Sio and picked up by Matty Nicholson to score.
Warrington then nailed a penalty for a high tackle and Ratchford kicked it to take the Wolves ahead but a fortunate Brodie Croft try gave the Red Devils the lead after a kick hit a defender and landed in his arms.
That try was followed by one for his opposite number George Williams after a great offload allowing the Wolves to take a 20-18 lead but it was all square heading into the final minutes as a deflected pass was taken by Gil Dudson who was in an offside position leaving it at 20-all and forcing golden point.
In golden point the drama continued with Marc Sneyd hitting the post with a shot at the drop goal.
They would go on to win through a try however with Sam Stone backing up a Joe Burgess try to score.
