Salford City Reds 10-0 Catalans Dragons

In terrible weather conditions at The Willows, engage Super League’s French franchise were nilled – just as they were in Round Two last season when they visited Salford and suffered a 16-0 defeat.

The Reds’ defence was the second best in the league last season, with only champions St Helens conceding fewer tries, but have conceded more points than any other club in the previous three rounds of 2007.

That given, the Reds will be very pleased to have kept the first clean sheet of the new season, while the Dragons will be disappointed at losing what they would have seen as a winnable game.

Former Harlequins man Luke Dorn opened the scoring early on for the home side with a try converted by John Wilshere; defence was on top for the remainder of the half and the half-time score stayed at 6-0.

The second half was a similar story: just one try courtesy of Malcolm Alker from dummy half, which Wilshere could not convert.

Salford could have furthered their lead when what appeared to be a legitimate try from Wilshere was ruled out by the video referee, but that decision had no effect on the final result.