Thought he was outstanding for us today and almost won the game single handed. Considering hes played no pre season games he looked in good shape and made some monster runs, well impressed.
Down sIde from today for me was arond the ruck. Far to slow, we got away with it (just) today but play like that against Saints at the next home game and the likes of Roby will have a field day.

A lot of the team turned up well today IMO.

Stu Howarth was the only player that put in a bad performance IMO. Before the season I was hoping he'd come good, but he had a shocker today. If we had played Theo as the interchange hooker, as many suggested on here, we'd have been in a much better position when Rangi went off but hindsight is a great thing - I was all for Howarth having his chance before the match. As soon as Rangi is back, Howarth needs to be dropped, IMO once again.

Yes Howarth did not have the best of days but he played lots for Saints last year and Brian Noble must think something of him. After Chase was injured was when we had problems. I think Tommy Lee played well in the halves BUT it was around the play the ball that he was missed. Other clubs do it but I cannot understand having four forwards as subs. Johnson, Saul & Melissa were good today but without Chase no spark from the backline. Smith moved the team around very well BUT without the ball it is difficult All credit to Agar for identifying our problem but I hope he does't tell anyone.

According to BN after today's game, Rapira will be in contention for the nest game. We have depth now which has got to be good

Thought the power of Hock, especially in the first half, was frightening at times. In the second half when the wheels came off slightly he went off-message. That holding down penalty he gave away was madness considering the position of the game. Overall though the power he offers us in the backrow is a huge plus. Total contrast to all the grafting second rowers we've had since Coley left.

Agree that the ruck was a concern today. McShane ran amok in the second half, wish we had signed him. Hansen/Morley were immense at times and steadied the ship when we were rocking.

Hansen is world class for me.

Steady pros - & so is Pulatea who also had a good game. Would be happy to see Meli in the centres. Johnson is the buy of the season from what I have seen thus far.

On a more positive note than my last post, I think Mullaney has been a great buy. Solid in defence, confident, decent in attack & a tough little git to boot. It's nice to have a decent fullback again!

Luke Pattern was one of my favourite fullbacks and IMO better than Mullaney.

Luke was great, too early to judge Jake in comparison IMO. Either way, he's a massive improvement over last year.

patten was liability under a high ball , mullaney looked a lot more assured under a bomb , thought smith had a solid game apart from his brainfart pulling back lauitiiti`s leg on the 10 metre line , it was 18-10 and we were under the cosh not sure if they scored of that pen or not , but the offence was on the 5th tackle , annoying

Sadly, most Salford fans used to slate him.

Hopefully, Mullaney will show a few sparks in attack as he looks very solid at present but hasn't managed to get space in open field.

I've said it a million times, Howarth isn't good enough, Gaz Owen must be fuming that size gets picked before actual rugby ability.

i though Mullaney looked dangerous when returning the ball, hock was immense going forward, i also like the look of Greg Johnson. Disappointed with the second half, but a win is a win and we will only get better.

I thought Howarth was shocking yesterday and I'm suprised he got in the squad ahead of Fages. On a positive note, Mullaney had a solid game along with Hock and Hansen. I also thought Tommy Lee had a great game; much better than I anticipated.

Sorry to disagree with Howarth: yes he was slower aroung the play the ball but his defence saved us twice. I left with mixed feelings about him but felt he was a lot better than when he was last "heew".

I do agree Fages or Owen would have been my choice but the issue was not the play the ball but our structure (or lack of) in the second half. We gave their pivots more room than we should have and so they began to run the game.

If we give Luke Walsh that much space and time, we will be humbled on telly.

I looked at Saints' bench on Thursday and shuddered.

Godinet looks like a quality player for Wakefield. He was pulling the strings for them.

Remember Jack Murphy under a high ball ?

Smith ran out of the line, possibly looking for an interception, which left the gap for Wakefield to score their first try

Jake Mullaney was my Man Of the Match yesterday.

Hock was a very close second though.

The less said about Howarth the better!

Paul McShane and Ali Lauitiiti were the stand out players for Wakefield in my opinion.

I agree entirely with this, and I'm [inot[/i sorry about it. It seems people have made their minds up about Howarth already, so everything bad he does is picked up straight away and everything good doesn't get noticed. I wouldn't be surprised if he was our top tackler yesterday, and his work rate was immense. The interception was poor play, and he is slower around the PTB than Gareth Owen, but some of the criticism he gets baffles me. At one point he dived on a loose ball close to our line and - rightly - stayed down to take the tackle, but there was someone near me shouting for him to get up and stop being lazy. Eh? Five yards from your own line, get up off the ground and try to move forward with no teammates behind you and no momentum, straight into the opposition forwards. There's only one way that was going to end up, and it was with a drop out between the sticks. For which he would have been criticised, of course.

Gareth Hock was outstanding yesterday. I would go as far to say it was one of the best performances I have seen from a second-rower in a Salford shirt. The power, strength and aggression was there for all to see, he was like a man on a possessed.

MOTM for me.

This is his 3rd season at the club though so it's hardly a knee-jerk reaction!

Plus he spent a large portion of last year at St Helens under the tutelage of Keiron Cunningham and from the looks of it didn't learn a thing from him about hooking!!

If Chase isn't fit next week I'd play Fages at 6 with Owen on the bench. If Chase is in, Fages or Owen on the bench as interchange hooker in place of Howarth.

My feelings about Johnson aside I think it was foolish to play him and Walton on the same side, they might be ex team mates at Batley but they got exposed by the speed of McShane and skills of Lauitiiti every time they attacked that side.

Howarth I'm sorry not worth his starting place for me, Hock is scary with ball in hand but you kind of stand waiting for him to do something stupid in defence, Tasi for me is going to be a massive signing as along with Morley they gave us more go forward than I have seen in 20 odd years at Salford. I think you can see the class of Mullaney the only issue I would have is that he stands way too deep, at times yesterday he was that far behind the line that any form of chip over the top would have exposed him.

Going forward Howarth had an awful game yesterday, nobody could possibly dispute that. It didnt help that he was forced into the game earlier than Noble would obviously have liked to have used him but even so, his distribution was appaling. Why does he need to pick the ball up before passing? Any half decent hooker will throw the ball from the floor, instead Howarth allowed the Wakefield defence 2 seconds to get up and in our faces each and every tackle.

I would like to see Theo Fages or Gareth Owen given a go vs London.

Agree about Howarth, did a bit of decent work in defence but every time he was at dummy half he was picking the ball up and passing after a second or two. Tried a delayed pass and we got punished for it with the interception.

Mullaney looked really safe under the high ball, the only time he did drop one was when he pretty much got taken out in the air and we should have got the penalty. Think Wakefield might have scored from getting the ball back there as well.

Agree wholeheartedly with your post.
When we were under the cosh it was madness for Hock to concede that penalty.He has to act with consideration for his teammates.
Higham in the first half at Warrington and now McShane in the second half yesterday have dominated the ruck.
If the much publicized Scott Moore does the same on Saturday it could be another biting of nails down to the knuckle - and it is their big opening day at a new venue with hopefully new supporters:they won't roll-over.
We'll need Gareth Hock on his best behaviour for the full 80.