If we were totally outplayed for 80 minutes you may have had a point. However, your argument falls apart when you consider that we were leading for 75 of the 80 minutes.

I think Price seemed overconfident in his pre-match interview. I thought that although you had most of the play you were ineffective and reliant on big mistakes from Salford for most points. Your defence was very poor - Salford seemed to score nearly every time they got to your end of the field. Didn’t seem to have a logical game plan or any real redirection.

You can criticise players you know even though you find it hard to do so.

The biggest brain fart of selection by Price, in the most important of games, since TS in the GF vs Pies.
2 excellent vessels in both seasons, to have the skippers....
TS, too many Forwards, loosing Ratchford leaving us without a rudder, throttled up vs Price, too many backs, loosing Clark left us without an outboard motor using oars!

Where is Gelling's head when you need it?

That would imply that they make errors on purpose or that I knew more about the game than a professional player.

Hooooooooooow did that happen

Yes - queried both wholesale changes on Tuesday and Austin’s selection at LF last night.

For me, Price had to look at the conditions and think 'this isn't the right game for Matty Ashton'. He didn't and that decision probably kept Salford in a game you could and should have won.

Ashton is a star in the making and a potential match winner but as soon as the weather showed it's hand we should have put him on the bench and Ratchford to FB.

We have previous for this - abstract team selections so we can shoehorn players into the team.

I don’t get this Ashton to bench...he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the bench. It’s either Ratchford or Ashton starting but now both.
That bench technically was the same as having 1 forward. Because Austin had taken the 13 spot. So if we’d have started BMM at 13 then Austin would have been the bench. Meaning we had only Philbin who plays prop as an interchange.
Once Hill and Cooper were spent, and Clark injures, we were done. If that game lasted another 20 mins, they’d have put another 20 on us.

Hands up all those who derided Tony Smith for not having a back on the bench in the Wigan GF.

It's academic anyway. If that 17 had applied some nous and having twice engineered two score leads had applied some game management, we'd have won.

Spot on.

We had 17 professional rugby league players out there and they have all played in the rain before - incorrect team choice or not, they should have played smarter. Well done Salford...