Alker sings Salford’s praises

Salford assistant coach Malcolm Alker hailed his side’s 22-10 triumph over Catalan Dragons in Perpignan as a “tremendous achievement”.

Winger Jodie Broughton crossed four times in a man-of-the-match display to help the Reds record back-to-back Engage Super League wins.

Alker, who is helping acting head coach Steve Simms run the team in the absence of ill coach Shaun McRae, admitted it had not been easy at Stade Gilbert Brutus but praised the team for coming out on top.

“It was a really good result for us today. To come over here and get two points is a fantastic achievement for the boys,” he said.

“At times in the game our backs were against the wall and they had us on the back foot, but we managed to hang on and come through the other side.”

Alker was understandably full of praise for Broughton, who crossed twice in each half, but also singled out the efforts of Stefan Ratchford and Stephen Wild.

Ratchford, normally a stand-off, was thrown into the centre positions for Salford and excelled, laying on three of Broughton’s tries.

Alker added: “Stefan Ratchford plays well wherever he plays and he’s probably made a rod for his own back out there tonight, but he’s shown his versatility tonight which is a massive bonus for us.

“He had a very, very good game out there tonight and was one of a few special performances.

“Jodie Broughton probably got the icing on the cake and will get the headlines tomorrow but he was outstanding in a lot of areas out there.

“I also thought Stephen Wild was immense out there and he had a belting game. He typified what we want our game to be about and he was really, really good tonight.”

Getting physical

Catalan coach Trent Robinson admitted his Dragons had simply been unable to contain the Ratchford-Broughton combination out wide.

However the Australian, who has now lost five of his seven matches in charge, was also critical of his side’s defensive efforts.

“There were some things that you really don’t want to see from your team out there tonight,” he said.

“Ratchford and Broughton had a strong game for them, they were pretty physical from those type of players and they ran strong and did a job on us.

“We had trouble finishing our sets tonight and without halves that can happen.

“There was some indecision at times in our attacking plays, but in the end you have to make your tackles and we didn’t do that enough out there tonight. We should have stopped some of those tries out there.

“I feel that we have taken a step backwards tonight.”

The hosts were not helped by the absence of pivotal scrum-half Scott Dureau, who was ruled out of the game just before the kick-off.

“Losing Scott didn’t help,” admitted Robinson. “We’ve seen in the competition so far that losing a half-back has an effect on the quality of performance and that is definitely what happened with us tonight.

“We just missed that bit of quality on those last plays that Scott provides us with.”