SAINTS beat Salford 32-12 on Friday – but the win came at a cost as Keiron Cunningham explains:
“I expected what they threw at us – that is definitely the strongest Salford team you will have seen for the last two or three weeks. Rangi Chase was influential for them and they had a lot of possession.
“Part of me says the team were dumb at times but part of me says you have to tip your hat to us as we were resilient once again.
“We weren’t as good as previous weeks, but that probably was down to what Salford threw at us.
“We went into some dark places tonight; it’s hard when you’re down on numbers and you lose the energy battle. That is the time your middle makes errors with the weight of possession and we did well to come out with the result. We lost four in the end and it hurt us. We had to try and juggle the team and defend Mark Flanagan on an edge.
“In the end I am very happy with the win – but it is a costly win for us.
“James Roby hurt his hand, Josh Jones his shoulder and they will both be assessed early in the week. When I saw the Tommy (Makinson) incident on the video it didn’t look good but he is up walking so the signs are good. We will have to suck it and see what happens.”
He continued: “We scored some sensational tries. In the first half we had two good ball sets and scored twice. When we lost players we lost our shape and when Luke Thompson went off I was happy to get the victory from there. Shannon McDonnell was great and Tommy Mak superb.”
