Devils nil Broncos

10 Feb 2019

Salford Red Devils 24-0 London Broncos

Salford Red Devils are the unlikely early-season pacesetters in Betfred Super League after running out 24-0 winners over London Broncos at the AJ Bell Stadium.

The Red Devils followed up their opening 34-14 win at Huddersfield Giants with another emphatic result to go top of the embryonic table.

One of only four unbeaten teams after two rounds, Salford will be delighted with their start but coach Ian Watson knows it is still early days.

Full-back Niall Evalds followed up his hat-trick against Huddersfield Giants with one of four tries, with Ken Sio, Jackson Hastings and Josh Jones also touching down, while Watson will be delighted with a defence that has conceded just two tries in 160 minutes so far.

The Broncos, who won just one game in the whole of their last season in Super League in 2014, matched that tally after the opening-round against Wakefield Trinity but this was something of a reality check for Danny Ward’s men.

Watson said after the match: “We’re confident as a group, We don’t need to shout about it, we just need to go about our business and do our job.

“I’m happy to get the week over really. We’ve had a tough week as a group, a lot of the boys have had flu and colds and we pulled training in the afternoon the other day because of it.

“Robbie (Lui) was a doubt for the game because he had it all day yesterday. So the guys have done a great job to be fair. We spoke a lot about defence. History shows you that the teams that can defend win things so it’s something worked hard on,

“Niall (Evalds) has led that, he’s the boss of our defence and I thought he was outstanding on our goal-line.

“We knew they were a dogged team and you’ve got to defend well to beat them. The fact that we’ve done the job proves that we’re a better team than we were last year.??

Ward said: "I’ve got to give the boys a big rap. We defended a lot on our goal-line.

“Certainly in the first half I thought Salford were outstanding, completing their sets, and to go in only 6-0 down at half-time I was delighted but that probably sapped us in the second half.

“I was disappointed how we attacked but I think we can learn quite a bit from that as well.??