Head Coach, Paul Rowley gave credit to his team for their efforts in the first-half, but says they need to find a way to turn that performance into points.
The Reds were beaten by Hull FC in Round 15 of the Betfred Super League on a wet and windy afternoon in Salford, but the final scoreline didn’t paint a full picture of the contest.
When Chris Hankinson scored and converted to bring the game to 6-6 midway through the first-half, you could feel a great deal of momentum behind the home side.
However, despite dominating large periods of the game, it was FC who took their chances and head back to Humberside with two points.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Rowley highlighted what went well for his side, but says he now faces a new challenge of sustaining that domination for a full 80 minutes.
“I think the first-half was as good as we’ve been to be honest. I thought we won most of the battles. Statistically, I think we was good, above 80% (completion), we was putting numbers in the tackle, territory-wise we dominated,” he began.
“Probably the only place we didn’t dominate enough was on the scoreboard, which I guess losing one million pounds worth of talent has an influence on that.
“So we’re going to have to work hard on our detail and find ways to get over that whitewash when we do apply ourselves.
“Like I said, that wasn’t a fluke, that was hard work and the lads really applied themselves in the right areas of the field as we practiced.
“Unfortunately, we wasn’t able to sustain it and credit to Hull, they turned that round on its head and did what we did to them in the first-half, to us in the second-half.
“They did have the personnel to put us to the sword, so credit to them, but disappointing from us, from putting ourselves in a position where we could challenge and look to try and get something from the game, to end up on such a scoreline.”
Tap the video above to watch Paul’s full post-match press conference in full…
