Salford Red Devils 38 Wakefield Trinity 8: Wildcats punished as Devils inflict a rare defeat

The Red Devils led only 10-4 at half-time before Mark Flanagan, Ryan Lannon – with his second touchdown – and Rob Lui went over in quick succession to send the Wildcats crashing to only their second Super League defeat in nine matches.

Salford ran in seven tries with others from Niall Evalds, George Griffin and Junior Sa’u.

Wakefield had skipper Danny Kirmond and Ben Jones-Bishop sin-binned in the first half, with Jacob Miller placed on report in the second half for a tackle on Gareth O’Brien who was forced off for treatment.

The Wildcats could only reply with tries from Anthony Tupou and Jones-Bishop.

Evalds went over from a delicate grubber kick by Michael Dobson after just three minutes.

But Wakefield’s defence was impressive, and they were rewarded for their perseverance with Tupou going over after 27 minutes to level the scores, with Liam Finn off target with the conversion attempt.

The Wildcats were down to 12 men when skipper Kirmond was sin-binned for a blatant trip and it proved costly with Lannon scorching over for a try, converted by O’Brien.

Then Jones-Bishop was yellow-carded for hauling back Evalds chasing a kick but O’Brien missed the long-range penalty attempt just before the interval.

Wakefield started the second half with 11 players but were helped by an early handling mistake by Griffin.

Kirmond returned but just in time for Flanagan to score after a return pass from O’Brien, who added the conversion to make it 16-4. Then Lannon notched his second try before Lui raced over.

A Griffin try was cancelled out by Jones-Bishop to leave Wakefield trailing 34-8 before Sa’u crossed in the last minute.

Salford: O’Brien, Evalds, Jones, Sa’u, Vidot, Lui, Dobson, Kopczak, Tomkins, G. Griffin, Murdoch-Masila, Hauraki, Flanagan. Substitutes: Lannon, A. Walne, Bibby, Joseph.

Wakefield: Jowitt, Hall, B. Tupou, Arundel, Jones-Bishop, Miller, Finn, Scruton, Sio, England, Kirmond, A. Tupou, Arona. Substitutes: Simon, Ashurst, Annakin, Anderson.

Referee: J Cobb (RFL).