I would have Johnstone in there every week on merit, by far the best winger at the club. The others could scrap over the other wing spot.

No idea how Owen found his way back into the team.

I'd have Johnstone in over Lyne

Totally agree, especially George Griffin. When he was on loan to us he couldn't break out of a brown paper bag.
I would like to see that again to find out who the culprits were.

Sorry but Johnstones time is not now but later .his postisonal play is not good

He'd have caught Chase whereas Lyne made a 1% effort before deciding he couldn't be bothered with 45 metres still to go

Moore missed the initial contact.

Hope Godinet and Lauitiiti come into contention next week. Need their experience and attacking edge.

I do not want to sound that I`m blaming the Ref for our defeat, but why did he always stop the clock when a player went down. I thought the game only got stopped for head injuries / knocked out, but Salford seemed to be going down when we were in the ascendancy and the momemtum was lost by us. A good tactic if the Ref gives in to it all the time.

think the dumbest play of the day was kicking at goal when we was only 2 points in front and all over them with a penalty to kick to touch and be on there line CRAZY

Normally I'd agree, the 2 points didn't really change anything as far as Salfords task was concerned and we gave up a great field position while risking a mistake from the resulting exit set.

However

From the resulting exit set we went 100 metres downfield and forced a drop out thus regaining the field position we'd had.

It was the wrong decision but in hindsight it didn't hurt us!

The turning point was Scott Moore's inability to play with his head up, he had a 4 v 2 on the last tackle but kicked anyway, the kick was awful, and just gifted Sau possession, Moore then missed a simple tackle leaving Chase to run 90 metres aided and abetted by a token attempt to catch him from Lyne.

Excellent summary of the situation.

Whilst we didn't lose that field position, we weren't 8 points up like we could've been had we not taken the 2 points. Simple errors lost us that game.

Some positives to take from the game though, Sio being the biggest positive for me.

There was no guarantee we'd have been 8 points up, what we gave away was field position in return for 2points, risky as I've explained in my previous post.

In the very next set we regained almost the same field position, thus taking the 2 worked out for us. Unfortunately we missed a scoring chance from it via Tupou and then missed another scoring chance on the opposite side before gifting Salford the lead.

Cant tell you how relieved we were when Wakefield took the 2 points. It made no difference whatsoever and felt had you tapped it you more than likely would have scored as Smith was causing us problems during that spell with those inside balls close to the line.

That was certainly a better Wakefield team than we have faced previously, despite the points difference being quite similar to previous games this season. Add Godinet and Ali to that team and you should have enough, just to stay up.

Great travelling support too.

Yep when we look back at this one we can say it was one that got away rather than what we've said in previous games when we were getting mullered or just weren't good enough. This time I believe we were good enough to win so I'm encouraged with a little more composure and game management we can get out of this mess and finish in that top 3.

I thought taking the 2 points was a pivotal moment in the game; we had them reeling and in disarray at that point, so opting to kick was inexplicable when another try looked very much on and would probably have closed out the game.

Equally, Scruton going in at DH in the dying moments of the game, and spilling his lollies; not blaming him, but why on earth did he do that? Judging by the look on his face, I'm not sure he quite knew why he'd done it either.

I was surprised with your decision to go for 2 but as you rightly say this was not the turning point.

Im pretty sure that the tackle before Moore's kick you had an overlap on your right hand side. The centre went on his own when he should have passed to Richard Owen who in my opinion would have scored.

The tackling for Josh and George Griffin's try was very poor. At 16-0 we really should have kicked on and won comfortably. However fair play for the recovery only for yourselves to also throw away a winning position.

I wouldnt be surprised to see us playing again in the 4v5 match.

It was a big game for us, but in reality, Salford have won one of their 3 home games and we have 3 still remaining so a win away is still possible (assuming we win at home) This wasn't the easiest game on our list by a long way and they way we played over all gives me a lot of confidence for our other games.

I said on the Facebook vote that Miller was my MoM but considered Molloy

The stats show Molloy topped our tackle count with 34 (though missed 3)
Carried the ball 10 times with an average gain of 8 metres, second only to Mullally in the forwards.
He made no errors, one tackle bust, one clean break and gave no penalties away.

He had a good game.

The other stat that jumps out at you is that Tim Smith made 25 tackles, missing 2. That's better than most of the forwards.
You can't fault his effort in this game. Brian Smith has changed a lot of things at Wakefield but I didn't think he'd be able to create that stat.

The worry is that after the season we have had, have they forgotten how to win a game. We did the same against Hull but managed to overall them and hang on. Winning is an habit being beaten by over 30 points for most of the season also becomes an habit.
I guess we will have a better idea after Saturday which it is.

Very true, but quite a few of these players were not part of Webster's team were they? Still too many errors at crucial points in games are costing us, that part hasn't improved under BS, although under JW there weren't many occasions when we got close enough to teams to make those errors!

A massive over reaction from some, one other thread entitled Relegation confirmed or similar.
We played poorly in 1st half, and in 2nd played well for most of it but were undone by a few silly errors. Its also true that Salford played poorly in 2nd half but had enough quality to take the chances they got. if we can get our game together for 80 mins instead of just the 40 we'll be ok

The problem is we have been working on this for over two months, we have changed the squad but the outcome remains the same. We start badly then improve only to fade again. The only difference is that we get a little closer before they pull away.

Just read Brian Smith's comments following the Salford game: www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/sport ... -1-7400985 Does anybody who went have an idea what he meant by 'plenty of other stuff' and all that?

Just read Brian Smith's comments following the Salford game: www.wakefieldexpress.co.uk/sport ... -1-7400985 Does anybody who went have an idea what he meant by 'plenty of other stuff' and all that?

I assume he is referring to the fact they were "very clever" and didn't give a penalty away for the whole first half.
I didn't feel it was as bad as some of the poor reffing we've had but there were things that could have been pulled up that wasn't.
Chase hitting out at Miller for a start and a few scruffy play the balls but that's just how it goes. They got their field position from the penalties we conceded so I'm sure that would have frustrated him.