Super League: Salford Red Devils 10-24 Hull KR - Rovers make it two out of two

Sam Wood scored two tries and had another two ruled out for Rovers

Hull KR maintained their winning start to the season as they beat Salford Red Devils for a fifth straight time.

Salford bossed the first half, but led by just Ken Sio's try at half-time, while Sam Wood had a try chalked off for Rovers.

Converted scores from Ethan Ryan, Frankie Halton and Wood, either side of a Deon Cross reply, put KR 18-10 up going into the final quarter.

Sio had a second try ruled out before Wood's second score wrapped up the win.

Injuries forced KR head coach Willie Peters to make four changes after beating Wigan, but the replacements stepped up, with Wood's brace and Will Daggers' four goals ultimately proving the difference as Rovers opened with back-to-back wins for the first time in 16 years.

Salford also kicked off having won their opener at Leigh, and were on the front foot from the get go, with Kallum Watkins' burst for the line denied by Kane Linnett's last-gasp tackle before Sio gave the Red Devils a 10th-minute lead.

The hard-working Rovers defence had already soaked up plenty of pressure before the ball was worked out wide for the Australian wing to touch down in the right corner.

The hosts boasted almost two-thirds possession in the opening half-hour, but errors crept in and chances went begging as a frantic half wore on.

Rovers would have been encouraged, and relieved, to concede just four points from the onslaught and thought they had levelled with their first sniff of the home line.

Wood walked over after Linnett's offload had gone to ground, but the video referee chalked it off for a knock-on, and moments later, second row Linnett then saw the ball slip from his grasp as he stretched to touch down.

Ethan Ryan put Hull KR on the board and in front after a scoreless first half

The visitors got the right side of the video referee just after the break when Burgess, fresh from signing a three-year deal, dropped Jordan Abdull's hopeful kick in goal and Ryan gathered to touch down.

Rovers were soon two scores clear when Abdull's measured kick found Halton's charge for the line, but James Batchelor's fumble then gifted Salford possession which they exploited, Cross breaking through a gap and twisting out of a tackle to touch down.

The errors were catching as Sam Stone knocked on from the restart, and Rovers cashed in with another super try, the influential Abdull's cut-out pass creating the space to give Wood a simple finish in the corner and restore their eight-point lead.

Sio had a second score ruled out for offside, and at the other end, Wood had a stunning finish ruled out for a foot in touch in an end-to-end second half.

Cross was forced into a knock-on as he bore down on the Rovers line, and it proved pivotal moments later, Wood pouncing when Ryan Brierley dropped Abdull's spiralling kick to seal it.

Salford head coach Paul Rowley told BBC Radio Manchester:

"You can't win games with the amount of errors we made, unfortunately, so it's a lack of discipline and also a lack of execution which we can't be accused of being guilty of too often.

"I'd like to have been more than four points up in that first half - we wanted more for our efforts, but, again, our detail was off so that was on us, but also on Hull KR's resolute defence as well.

"They scrambled remarkably well and then in that second half we just gave too much territory, and sheer weight of territory killed us off.

"Our resilience is very high, but if you give all that territory then, high resilience or not, you'll crack two or three times and that's what we did."

Hull KR head coach Willie Peters told BBC Radio Humberside:

"We didn't have the energy we wanted in that first period but we got that back and I thought they stuck to the game plan extremely well in the second half.

"What I was proud about was that we hung in there, we regrouped at half-time, spoke about what we needed to work on and they executed it.

"We had every excuse I suppose with the five-day turnaround and we had four players out for them to go 'close enough's good enough', but it's not who we want to be, we don't want to be that team.

"We want to be a team that goes out to win and competes to win every single week."

Salford: Brierley; Sio, Cross, Lafai, Burgess; Croft, Sneyd; Ormondroyd, Ackers, Dupree, Watkins, Stone, Partington.

Interchanges: Gerrard, Vuniyayawa, Atkin, Wright.

Hull KR: Dagger; Ryan, Opacic, Kenny-Dowall, Wood; Lewis, Abdull; Sue, Parcell, King, Batchelor, Linnett, Minchella.

Interchanges: Halton, Hadley, Litten, Luckley.

Referee: M. Griffiths.

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