Salford treating Wigan trip as do-or-die

Salford captain Lee Mossop says they won’t be thinking about second chances when they travel to Wigan in the first round of the play-offs tonight.

A third place finish for the Red Devils mean that even with a defeat at the DW Stadium, their Grand Final dreams are still alive, and they would welcome Castleford next week.

But with eight successive wins behind them, Salford are focused on getting three more which would crown them arguably the most unlikely Super League champions ever.

Mossop said: “If I’m being honest, I’d prefer it if we never had the second chance. I think the mentality that we’re building, we’re going in to each game now like it’s do or die.

“We’ve just started to believe in our own hype. We thought we could do that at the start of the year and for whatever reason, it wasn’t happening, we were getting beat by a few points here and there and scratching our heads, and I think now on reflection that was down to lack of belief.

“Now the penny seems to have dropped and it would be ideal if we could win the next three! That would be perfect.”

Mossop spent seven years with Wigan, with a brief stint in the NRL at Parramatta in the middle, but remarkably has never played against the Warriors at the DW Stadium.

Since leaving at the end of 2016, he has faced his former employers twice – both at the AJ Bell Stadium

He said: “I’m massively looking forward to it. For whatever reason, I keep being injured when we play Wigan so I’ve not played them for a while now.

“I’ve not played back at the DW since I left so I’m looking forward to that, and I think Wigan are the perfect team for us to play.

“They’ve been at this stage every year for the past six or seven years, they know what it’s about, they know how to win these tight games, so I think they’re the perfect match to get our play-offs going.”