Phil Veivers: Defeat was worst performance of the year

Salford coach Phil Veivers described his side’s 46-8 loss against Widnes as saving “the worst performance for the most important game” of the season.

Salford went into half time 24-0 down after keeping the Vikings to a scoreless draw after 20 minutes.

Widnes didn’t score until the final quarter of an hour of the first half, and Veivers admits his side were lucky to be 24-0 behind at half time.

He said: “The first half we probably used a lot of energy on ourselves, our completion rate was 50 per cent and they had the ball 10 sets more than what we did.

“It was a very under performance from my team tonight after putting in some good shows over the past few weeks, and we’ve saved our worst performance for the most important game.

“Give credit where credit is due, they had a game plan and pretty much stuck to it. They really gave it to us.”

Veivers confirmed Joel Moon had strained his hip flexor muscle during the warm up, and was replaced by Ashley Gibson.