We got a reality check, admits Salford coach Paul Rowley

Salford coach Paul Rowley said he was ‘absolutely gutted’ with his side’s performance as they slumped to their first loss of the season at Hull.

The Red Devils suffered a 48-16 defeat against Hull at the MKM Stadium on Saturday.

New signing Tim Lafai bagged a brace for Salford whilst Super League’s top try scorer Ken Sio scored his sixth of the season.

However, this was a wake up call for Rowley’s side as they fell to their first defeat of 2022.

Rowley said: “We were really poor. We had a disrupted start when James Greenwood pulled his groin at the end of the warm-up and it didn’t get any better.

“We lost Dan Sarginson for two minutes after a miscommunication from the bench which left us with six subs after two minutes, which put us on the back foot and meant our middles doing a huge stint.

“Even if that was smooth, I don’t think we would have won, we were way off.

“I don’t think there was a lack of desire or effort but certainly (we were) off in our detail in attack. We got spooked by a team who completed really high.”

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Rowley added: “I’m disappointed because we came here with massive belief. I guess it was our first test of a grind against a team that was highly motivated.

“We went into our shell and defensively we were soft tries, we were nowhere near resilient enough.

“It’s not good enough really but we won’t look to find any excuses. I don’t doubt this group for one minute, we’ll just work harder and harder to be more consistent.

“We’re two from three and I guess some people said we’d have taken that but I don’t want to accept mediocrity. I’m absolutely gutted with the performance. It’s a bad day.

“We need to use today as an opportunity to give us a kick up the backside, a realism check.”

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