In the live games we saw two hotly tipped sides get off to impressive starts with away wins at title rivals. We also saw two teams that many think will be involved in the bottom end of the race for the eight play in what turned out to be an exciting try-fest.
We also had fixtures contrived in such away that the top eight sides of 2013 played another top eight side, the bottom ranked sided from last year also going against each other - a clever way to get the ball rolling on a new season!
Round 1 results
Home
|
Away
|
Attendance
|
||
Wigan
|
8
|
Huddersfield
|
24
|
16240
|
Warrington
|
8
|
St Helens
|
38
|
13157
|
Hull FC
|
36
|
Catalan
|
34
|
11400
|
Widnes
|
64
|
London
|
10
|
5327
|
Bradford
|
18
|
Castleford
|
36
|
8214
|
Hull KR
|
6
|
Leeds
|
34
|
11526
|
Salford
|
18
|
Wakefield
|
14
|
7102
|
Average attendance
|
10424
|
|||
Round 1 observations
The first thing to say is the crowds were good, up on the same time last year. Wigan-Huddersfield set the tone and the first weekly round saw average crowds of over 10,000. First rounds are often well attended but this time round we saw a Salford club stadium record was inside the AJ Bell Stadium and a new record crowd at Hull KR, very encouraging for the year ahead. Four games had five-figure crowds, including all the three TV games. TV rating were also reportedly encouraging, being up on the respective opening fixtures last year.
As well as positive crowds, a feature in the three TV games was serious foul play, with each game having a legitimate case for a red card being shown. Matt Bowen was adjudged to have hit the shoulder first on Scott Grix and so is free to play in the World Club Challenge. Many suggested that a lesser next game might have seen him get a more sever punishment - we don't think he could have argued against it.
Then in the Wire-Saints game Sia Soliola had a crack at taking Michael Monaghan's head off and the crowd (and Sky commentators) were calling for red. Again, the disciplinary said penalty sufficient, first contact apparently on the chest and the opponent dipped in. At least Saints fans can't moan about the Bowen decision any more.
Oliver Elima hasn't got off so lightly for his blatant and dangerous twist on Aaron Heremaia's leg. Grade D, 3-5 match ban coming his way. Catalan may feel they get then rough end of the stick with the disciplinary but this surely is deserved. Michael Weyman was charged for a similar offence for Hull KR on Sunday, his being classed as a Grade C, 2-3 game ban potentially awaits.
Another common theme across the TV games was 40-20s - the winning team kicked one in all three games and Widnes got one too in their big win. Four 40-20s in a round is a fairly high number and its a big momentum turner in a league with increasingly fast and strong defensive attributes. Could 2014 be the year of the 40-20? We'll see.
Whilst positional kicking was good, goal kicking wasn't so great. Across the league kicking was below 62%. Over a third of conversion attempts were missed. Even the best weren't immune, Kevin Sinfield missed more than he kicked for Leeds, same for Danny Brough.
Star performers
Four men got try hat-tricks in Round 1 - Jermaine McGillvary (Huddersfield), Damien Cardace (Catalan), Kevin Brown (Widnes) and Tom Briscoe (Leeds). Brown also had four try assists in his side's big win over London.
Tommy Makinson for St Helens was the biggest metre maker, taking over 200m on his 18 carries. You expect outside backs to get good metres with kick returns in their favour, but special mention goes to Andy Lynch and Zeb Taia as the best ground gaining forwards with 156m each.
Jordan Thompson on debut for Hull FC was the best average gainer, 18m per carry but only two carries. Another underused good gainer in the same game was Eloi Pelissier, who only had two carries but for 25m. The best gainer, given that he had more than a few carries, goes to Tom Briscoe, the try line only stopping him extending his 12m per carry average on his way to 152m total.
Gareth Hock was a handful against Wakefield, some monster hand offs on the way to a round leading nine tackle busts. In response to those efforts, Wakefield bench prop Taulima Tautai was the top offloader, with six successful offloads helping his team come back in that game to leave it close at the end. In fact, all the top offloaders in the league came in that game for Round 1, Ali Lauititi, Matt Ryan and Greg Johnson all getting four away.
Defensively, eight players had over 40 tackles, which is a real big effort. A special mention goes to Alex Foster of London who despite suffering a big defeat had 42 tackles without missing one. Lynch, Tautai, Eorl Crabtree, Liam Farrell, Matt Diskin, Hep Cahill and, possibly most impressive given his physical size and natural half back role, Sam Powell were all player with over 30 tackles and no misses. Foster and Farrell worked overtime with double figures of marker tackles too. Some impressive numbers for sure.
On the less impressive side of things, Warrington's Ben Westwood had five individual errors that contributed to his side not being able to get their attack going. Hull FC's Richard Horne was the most penalised player with three against his name, but his side came good despite this.
Feature game - Salford Red Devils v Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
Part of our plan this year is to get to as many different grounds as possible around Super League and the rest of Rugby League. First up, we thought we would take in the opening game of the Red Devilution as neutral observers. As it turns out, we weren't the only ones, but more on that later...
A slight detour on the way to the ground because J11 was closed anti-clockwise on the M60 didn't knock us out of our stride and we arrived plenty early to sample the atmosphere around the ground. Getting on to the car park (reasonable at £5.00) was much more of a breeze than getting off it - it wasn't so much the time taken as the free-for-all nature of the traffic streams in getting off that caused us concern!
Anyway, we got there and swiftly met with the guys from Salford fan podcast Devil in the Detail. Nice guys and they set the tone that we picked up from most of the Salford fans we spoke with - a balance between nerves and excitement, that expectation that they were in for a fall at some point, that this type of thing doesn't happen to Salford, not anymore at least.
It might have been the sunshine, it might have been the start of the season, it might have been that they hadn't really seen their team play yet, but there definitely was a good feeling outside the fans bar. Lots of people were milling about and fire breathers were entertaining them as they passed. Patrick and Robert assured us that this wasn't normal, that this day did feel special and was the start of something. They said a good crowd and a win were all they were looking for at this stage and thought they could build on that as a starting point.
In to the stadium then, we took our seats quite early to see the exciting entrance of the red devil parachute team. Just after they touched down and Dr Koukash greeted them with a handshake, the ground started to fill up nicely, particularly in the terraced ends - the Wildcats had a good vocal support after a tricky off-season too. As the ground filled up, the seat next to us was filled by a man in a flat cap, who we took little notice of despite having to stand up for him to pass. It took about five minutes for us to look back that way and realise we were sat next to the legend that is Brian Carney! We got a picture, but he had his eyes closed, so it didn't make the gallery below. He was later joined by Rodd Studd, after his interview duties were finished. The pair were very friendly and willing to chat at half time despite, or maybe because of, the abuse Rodd was getting for his suggestion last year that Salford should pick up the Manchester name to get wider appeal. It was a bonus feature of what was already shaping up to be an enjoyable trip.
On the field, it was a game of two halves! Salford started with some physical stuff, Lami Tasi and Gareth Hock particularly impressing carrying the ball and the Salford defence was strong and intense, unsurprisingly Harrison Hanson led the way. In attack we felt they were a little disjointed, though that wasn't such a shock with the whole starting line up consisting of new signings.
Scoring was started by Rangi Chase stabbed a grubber in that Junior Sa'u acted quickest to, palming back for Gareth Hock to touch down. It appeared that the Wakefield defence should have reacted better to the kick, but they didn't - Mullaney converted for 6-0. Shortly after, following some threatening raids at the Salford left edge, Wakefield broke and in trying to shut it down, Chase tumbled, tripped the attacking runner but saw his game ended with a leg injury. Hobbling past the abuse of the away fans didn't look so fun for him.
The rest of the first half play ran through Tim Smith, which sort of helped the Salford structures as their attack now had one focal point to work from. Smith finally timed one of his passes right and that saw Hansen crash through the defence and reach out to ground the ball over the goal line. Another Smith pass, this time a delayed short ball, sent substitute Andrew Dixon over. A kick that we thought missed was good and it was 18-0 at half time. Things were going to plan for the home side, the Wakefield fan sat up behind us asked Carney if he thought Wakefield or Bradford would go down with London, Carney avoided the question with class just suggesting it'll be an exciting season to watch.
We wondered if Salford's defensive intensity could be maintained, but we didn't really think Wakefield could threaten enough. However, Richard Agar really must have got his team going in the dressing rooms as they came out playing at a whole new speed, all starting with Paul McShane out of dummy half and Pita Godinet starting to click. Godinet set up a try for Matt Ryan and then read the slow play out of dummy half to jump on a Stu Howarth pass and take it for a try. Off the back of that, Ali Lauititi started to threaten near the Salford line. He had one try ruled held up but not long after he got the ball down despite three defenders trying to stop him. Unfortunately for Wakefield, only one try was converted and Salford figured out the way to play they game to nervously close out the last quarter, despite Reece Lyne coming very close to taking in a high pass but ultimately falling short.
Smith got the sponsors man of the match. The home fans we spoke to before heading for the car seemed to be most impressed with Hock - he did do some serious damage on a few runs, possibly more damage than Dean Collis should have played on with on one occasion late in the first half. We were also impressed with the performance put in by Greg Johnson who really looked the part back in Super League.
Listen to us discuss all this and more in Episode 5 of Super League Pod.
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