What Salford Red Devils boss said after Wigan Warriors defeat

A heavily rotated Salford Red Devils side lost 64-0 as Wigan Warriors secured a second-consecutive League Leaders Shield and head coach Paul Rowley has given his verdict.

Defeat wasn’t a surprise for Salford, particularly after the Red Devils somewhat controversially named a squad with 17 changes but the inexperienced side acquitted themselves well against the champions.

That was certainly how Paul Rowley felt as he spoke to Sky Sports post-match, explaining: “Well obviously Wigan were a class above, but there’s a lot of positives for us.

“We learned a little bit about some of the youngsters. I asked for effort and desire and to compete on everything and I thought they did that.”

Salford saw eight debutants take to the field with a handful of others having only played several minutes of action previously. That was countered by the veteran experience from the likes of Chris Atkin and Adam Sidlow, the latter making his 150th Super League appearance.

Rowley assessed the performance: “Sometimes you can be second best but you can be proud of people’s efforts and I thought our young lads stood up really well and I thought our senior players as well, people like Chris Atkin, Sidlow and Ormondroyd. There were a few out there who really had a dig and did long minutes as well, they’d not played for weeks, quite a few of them, so I’m very proud of the group actually.”

What next for Salford Red Devils?

When pushed on which os his debutants faired best, the Salford Red Devils coach picked out two players to pay tribute to.

“I think it’d be unfair to start singling individuals out, I think, if you want me to give you one name, I thought Charlie Glover was very good at prop. If you look at Jamie Pye there, it’s almost a day to the year where I met Jamie Pye, he’d not played for three years, he gave up in Covid and he lost 25 kilograms, he went on a journey to get here tonight, it’s almost a year to the I think that’s a pretty remarkable effort and story.

“So there’s some opportunities out there, some dreams come true. It was a day that some people probably thought they’d never get. So I’m pleased to give them that opportunity.

“Obviously it’s Wigan’s day and we acknowledge that but we’ll take a lot of positives from our individual efforts.”

He would also underline exactly how important it was that he had rested and rotated his stars, something he had spoke about pre-match, with Rowley arguing that his selection was aimed at maximising the chances of Salford Red Devils making the semi-finals.

Rowley argued: “Our objective was to have a fit squad. I think it’s irrelevant where we play. Without a fit squad then obviously our chances would be a lot less. I think we’ll be minor underdogs whoever we play and wherever we play. So our biggest challenge was to have a fit squad and that’s what we did of course.”