My problem with Tony was his team selection but not for the same reason as everybody else. The pack was this
Wood Higham Hill
Cooper Waterhouse
Harrison.

That is a very big and slow pack. You could argue that there are 5 prop forwards on the field. Against a Sean Long coached Salford who move the ball very well and run plenty of very good angles it was a disaster waiting to happen. The number of times Salford had an overlap because of the backs coming in to cover holes left by the forwards was unreal. We had a number of players who were not quite match fit and a few who couldn't hold on to the ball so struggled for posession. On top of that, Salford had a point to prove from the previous fixture when we beat them with our kids. All of this shouldn't detract from how well Salford played. They were clinical.

TBH there were some heart stopping moments on that day as well ! I thought Salford played some very good rugby on Friday ,in fact, at times it was like watching the Wire on a good day & if you can keep playing that way you should start to attract more support. Vievers & Long could well be a good partnership in the seasons ahead. Well done,good win !

There is another couple of points to this match from a coaching perspective I think.

There are players coming back now and the coaches need to decide which players can cope with the pressure of the semi final, possible final and the play off matches. In those matches we could well be behind in the match and have a team dominate us like Salford did.

Had we put out the strongest team to 'please the paying fans' we could have still got beat perhaps but or we could have blown Salford away as many predicted on the guessimate thread.

But had we blown them away with the strongest team, what would Tony have learned about the players? Maybe nothing that he doesnt already know. What would the players have learnt about themselves and each other? Thats more relevant perhaps.

Had the players on show worked out how to correct what was going wrong on the field themselves and had they found a solution to stop Salford playing so well then that would have been far more beneficial to all than us putting 60 on them.

As it is, we've learned that some players perhaps could stick at it under the pressure and make some plays to get the team back whereas others crumbled under the pressure and couldn't turn it round.

That is more important come the business end of the season I think.

In truth, that performance from Salford has been coming for some time, they are a great attacking team. It just took a typical Warrington performance to show it.

They will have a very strong second half of the season and with that team we were always going to get beat. I had Salford as strong favourites. Our players played as well as Salford let us play, they were outstanding.

Seemed a complete lack of appetite for it on Friday. Despite our big pack they gave us no go forward and Salford's smaller six owned the middle of the pitch. Crap discipline, no kicking game accompanied by poor handling resulted in us continually handing the ball back to Salford in our half. Worst Wire performance for some time but Salford were excellent and could have won by a lot more. The offload by Feka in a four man tackle summed up our lack of fight.