Salford debutant Tui Lolohea impresses coach Ian Watson

Salford coach Ian Watson was happy with the performance of Tui Lolohea on debut.

The Red Devils fell to a 28-12 defeat against the Warriors at the DW Stadium on Friday night.

Lolohea made his debut for the Red Devils since joining the club midweek in a swap deal which involved Rob Lui going to Leeds.

Speaking after the game, Watson said: “It was a really good first game from him.

“Our attacking ball was a little bit disjointed as a team but he has only had one full training session with us. He did what we asked of him.

“He has got the ability to play at both half-back and full-back. We have spoken with him and he says that six is his number one position and that’s what he wants to be.

“We’ve obviously lost Rob Lui and Tui has come to us and he has the chance to stake a claim in our team. Tui did what we asked of him today and we will back him. I’ve got faith that we’ll be able to get the best out of him.”

Salford’s loss at Wigan sees them drop out of the top five, with Wigan leapfrogging the Red Devils and Catalans into fourth.

And Watson believes his side’s errors cost them the two points.

He added: “We felt comfortable being in the arm wrestle early doors but then we made errors and our middles were doing too much defending.

“I thought Tui was a plus for us but there were a few other players that were off today. There were too many errors from us in the first half.

“As a performance, that was not good enough and it wasn’t us. We felt we were way off in certain areas today and Wigan started playing a bit too quick on the back end of that as well.

“We were just doing too much defending and we were too fatigued.”

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