Salford City Reds head coach Brian Noble admitted he was under no illusions as to the task facing his side after league-leaders Wigan Warriors cruised to a comprehensive home victory.
England stars Josh Charnley and Sam Tomkins scored two tries apiece as the Warriors ran in nine, with the 21-year-old winger adding five conversions – Adam Walne’s late converted try the Reds’ only consolation.
But Noble – who believes there were still some positive individual performances to take away – claimed he was relishing the challenge of turning the Red Devils around.
“It was a reality check for all of us and the commitment has to start on Monday to get better every week.
“Compliments to Wigan – that’s the bar we have to aspire to. They’re physically very good, structurally very sound and they just had a little too much prowess.
“But we have a pulse and we can work on that.
“I’m certainly looking forward to the challenge and there was nothing I hadn’t seen that I didn’t expect.
“I fully understand where we’re at and where we need to go to and I’m pretty confident that I can make strides both this year and certainly next year.”
Wigan flew out the traps and were in front within two minutes when Charnley capped a flowing passing move by skipping inside Marc Sneyd’s tackle to score.
Welsh international Ben Flower broke the line to score seven minutes later and Anthony Gelling made it 12-0 on the quarter-hour.
Former Salford man Matty Smith failed to convert any tries but the Warriors continued to press with Tomkins darting between two tackles to add a fourth just past the half-hour.
Liam Farrell added a fifth on the stroke of half-time and Charnley – with his first kick – added the extras.
Charnley capped a great passing move to score his second try ten minutes after the break, which he converted himself.
On 56 minutes Parramatta-bound Lee Mossop grabbed a score just next to the posts and Tomkins eased through for his second just past the hour.
Charnley converted both the straightforward kicks and maintained his 100% record after Blake Green’s score on 72 minutes.
Walne spared the Red Devils a whitewash-defeat with just a minute remaining however, completing a move which youngster Theo Fages started by scoring under the posts – Sneyd converted.
Noble insists he will not be spending Reds’ owner Dr Marwan Koukash’s pocket-full of cash too soon however as he bids to bring long-term success to Salford.
“There are two reasons I won’t be spending too soon,” he said.
“The availability of the right players has to be right and secondly I gave a commitment to the current players to both look at them and not bring in players that were probably worse than what we have there.
“I wouldn’t want a short-term fix. Whoever comes to the club needs to be here for a while.
“Throughout the season it’s difficult to get players of the calibre to improve the team so you’ve got to work with what you’ve got in most cases.”
Image courtesy of Sky Sports, via YouTube, with thanks.
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