Friday 8 July 2016 00:12, UK
Salford coach Ian Watson says the club's failure to overturn their six-point deduction affected his players as they crashed to a 40-14 defeat at Warrington.
Hours after learning that their penalty for a Super League salary-cap breach had been upheld, the Red Devils suffered a seven-try rout which ensured a place in the Qualifiers and a second successive battle to avoid relegation.
"Everyone was well aware of it," said Watson. "The tough thing is that the result came out on game day.
"So we kind of spoke quickly about it in the morning but we didn't want to make too big a thing out of it.
"All the players were really positive, wanting to focus on this game, get the victory and move forward, but it does have an impact on your thinking.
"Emotion only takes you so far. It's been a tough day all round for the club and for the players."
Salford made the brighter start, taking the lead with Junior Sa'u's eighth-minute try, but they fell 18-4 behind by half-time and when former Warrington hooker Sean Kenny lost the ball over the line on 55 minutes, their last chance of getting something from the game disappeared.
"We had a dig early doors but had a lull in the middle period and I sensed us being a bit flat at half-time," said Watson.
"If Sean Kenny had scored, it might have turned the game a little bit but we piggy-backed them out of field position and made some silly errors."
The Red Devils now have two games left to try and secure an extra home match in the Qualifiers and Watson is confident he can steer them to safety for the second year in a row.
"We spoke at the beginning of the year about being a strong team and being competitive all the time," he added.
"What we need to do now is finish the season strongly, these next two games, and then we can look forward to the Middle 8s and go in there with some form.
"It's going to be a tough competition to play in. If we can get the wins and look back and say, with those six points, we're a top-six team, then we've done really well."
Centre Ryan Atkins and loose forward Joe Westerman both scored two tries apiece and rookie stand-off Dec Patton contributed 14 points as Warrington moved to within a point of joint leaders Hull and Wigan.
"There was some good, some bad and some ugly," said Wolves coach Tony Smith. "I was pleased but there are still some areas we need to work on.
"It was nice to score some points because they've not been flowing for us, there was some really top-class attack at times.
"There were some lapses in defence, which has been our strong point, but there were some last-ditch efforts to stop tries which showed some desperation.
"Overall I thought the scoreline reflected the game pretty well.
"I thought Joe Westerman was fantastic, he really stood out along with Ryan Atkins, who is back to some of his best. Ryan has had to rebuild himself from last year and he's done that well. Ashton Sims also made a difference coming back to the squad."
