Ethan Ryan reckons Salford have the best centre pairing in Super League - no wonder he’s loving life there so much.
The Ireland winger has settled into life great for Paul Rowley’s side since his switch from Hull KR. He scored his third try in six games when finishing off a brilliant move in last weekend’s 18-16 win at Huddersfield.
Ex-Leeds centre Nene Macdonald, who scored twice in the same game, produced a superb right-side run to lay it on a plate for Ryan. With Tim Lafai blasting sides open on the left, Salford, who are now one of SIX teams sitting joint-top of Super League, are blessed with devastating strike runners.
Ryan, 27, admitted: “I always sniff around Nene because I know what he can do. He’s always getting the ball free. He must offload four or five times per game. If you can push with him, get around him, it might create something for you and that’s what I did.
“I saw that room was running out on the outside so I cut back in and managed to get that ball, just catch it and get to the tryline. We’re blessed to have probably the two best centres in the league so it’s really good to play outside of either of them.”
Papua New Guinea international Macdonald is Super League’s top offloader with 22 and only Matt Dufty has made more than his 1538m while he’s also in the top-ten for tackle busts. Aussie ace Lafai is the competition’s highest-ranked tackle-buster on 84 and in the top-ten for metres and offloads. Ryan, meanwhile, missed the opening four games of the season with a wrist injury.
But the ex-Bradford wideman has now made a spot his own as Salford go in search of a fourth straight win at Leigh on Friday. He said: “Pre-season was a bit tough being injured. You can learn the new systems and new ways but until you’re actually on the field doing them, it’s hard to get consistency.
“I’ve had to learn pretty quickly and I do think I’m getting there now. I feel more comfortable each week, more used to our systems and how we play as a team and how Rowls wants us to play. It’s coming. Hopefully I can only get better.”
Salford had to hold off a late Huddersfield rally after leading 18-0. Ryan admitted: “It was a bit nervy. Momentum swung and it made for a scrappy ending for us. We’ll need to work on that. We never make it easy for ourselves. Just look at our points difference [12]: our games are always really close. We should have finished that game a lot better than we did.”
And Challenge Cup holders Leigh, desperate to kick-start their season, will exploit any weakness. Ryan said: “You saw when we played at our place not long ago. You see the strengths they bring. They have a couple of players back now, like [Edwin] Ipape.
“They’ve had a rubbish start to the year with injuries but have been chipping away still and put up some really good performances. Like any other game, we have to be on it otherwise it can go either way. We’ll do our homework.”