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Celtic well and truly outclassed us
18/ 9/2008
MALCOLM ALKER COLUMN: "I CAN’T even begin to describe how disappointed I am with the way we played in our Grand Final qualifier with Celtic Crusaders. It was arguably our most important game of the season and yet we seemed to be lacking in energy throughout.
Several of our players looked out of sorts and everything that could go wrong did go wrong, including having two tries harshly disallowed. Celtic had no such problems. They were bang in form and we ended up being well and truly outclassed as our unbeaten home record in League One flew out of the window. But I have no doubt that we can bounce back from the defeat. We are a far better side than we showed against Celtic and, thankfully, we have another bite at the cherry in terms of qualifying for the Grand Final.
Whitehaven are now the team standing in our way. We have played them twice this season, losing one and winning one. And they proved what a good all-round team they are in knocking Halifax out of the play-offs on Sunday. To beat them, we will need to defend a lot better than we did against Celtic.
We also need to start the game much better. I don’t know what it is about playing Celtic but we always seem to start slowly against them. We didn’t touch the ball for the first seven minutes on Thursday and we were 16-0 down after 17 minutes of play. Playing catch up against a good side like Celtic is never easy and I am hoping that we have finally learnt our lesson now.
We are drinking at the last chance saloon from here on in. I would love to beat Whitehaven tonight (Thursday) and then gain a revenge win over Celtic in the Grand Final. True, we will be playing in Super League next season regardless of our Grand Final fate. But there is a league title and professional pride at stake here and that is more than enough to spur us on. I just hope that we have more of our fans cheering us on against Whitehaven.
I can understand the temptation of staying at home and watching the game on Sky. But that attitude is negating our home advantage. A big crowd making plenty of noise would be much appreciated tonight. And I have a good feeling that the Salford fans will be going home happy this time.
Craig Stapleton certainly went home happy from our annual awards night on Monday having picked up four player of the year gongs. He has been outstanding for us this year and I am delighted that his efforts have been rewarded. He was a worthy clean sweep winner."
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