Wire strike down Salford
Warrington have consigned Salford to the Qualifiers with a 40-14 victory at the Haliwell Jones Stadium.
The Wire completed a league double over the Red Devils for the fourth consecutive season.
In the eight minute Salford took a 4-0 lead courtesy of Junior Sa’u going over after a deft little kick from Robert Lui.
The Wolves were back in front when Joe Westerman forced his way over the whitewash after receiving a pass from Ashton Sims. Stefan Ratchford nailed the subsequent conversion.
Ryan Atkins increased Warrington’s lead five minutes from the interval, going over in the corner after being picked out by Chris Sandow.
Atkins scored his second try in four minutes, going past three Salford players before shaking off the challenge from O’Brien and crashing over.
Tom Lineham scored the first try of the second half to put Warrington 22-4 in front, touching down in the corner following the pass from Ratchford.
In the 50th minute, Josh Griffin reduced the deficit for the Red Devils, receiving the pass from O’Brien before touching down in the corner.
Sean Kenny went close to further narrowing the gap and rounding off some brilliant play by Salford, but the try was cancelled out after he was judged to have dropped the ball under the challenge from Brad Dwyer.
Into the last quarter and Westerman crossed from dummy half following a drive by Ratchford. Declan Patton nailed the conversion between the posts to secure a 20-point lead for the Wolves.
Warrington put further daylight between them and their opponents with Patton grounding the ball despite the attempts of Salford to steal the ball from Westerman on the line.
Wth 12 minutes left on the clock Matthew Russell added his name to the list of try scorers, touching down in the corner after a kick from Sandow.
Lui profited from some slack Warrington defending to crash over straight from a scrum.
Greg Johnson could have scored another late consolation try for Salford but it was ruled out after he was found to have dropped the ball a metre from the try-line.