Wire fan Rob Watson, aka Spirit of 55, gives his view on Friday's defeat to Salford

THAT was the sort of nightmare we could have all done without reliving.

It didn’t start that badly. The first half was pretty even, if anything I would say that Wire edged it on overall play but they wasted some chances though to turn that into an advantage on the scoreboard. Instead they were two points behind at the break.

It was the first twenty minutes of the second half that was the worst of the horror show, creating flashbacks to the terrible defeat against the same opponents on Good Friday.

Salford scored three unanswered tries in that period and Warrington looked completely lost. During this time the defence was way off where Wire would want it to be.

Overall though it was in attack that was most concerning. Often playing like they had never played together before, there was no fluidity to the attack at all.

When they moved the ball wide they looked like a poor touch rugby team, moving sideways but not forward with any purpose as if they were waiting for an enormous gap to open-up before committing to moving towards Salford’s try line.

It became one of those performances where individuals started trying to fix things on their own, players taking turns going rogue and trying to create something out of nothing without the rest of the team aware of what they had planned.

Last-tackle plays in the Salford half were all just high kicks that appeared to belong more in a lazy pre-game warm up rather than in a match itself.

Most worrying of all though was that absence of any noticeable go-forward, breaking that golden rule of rugby league of trying to go sideways before you have gone forward.

When the ball was moved wide there was still a distinct lack of forward running, no lead runners going to the line to give the ball carrier options and ask some questions of the defence.

Currently Wire’s only consistency is their inconsistency. They seem unable to bring the required energy to each performance.

It is as if they don’t understand what contributes to the good performances and don’t know how to repeat it.

From the outside, the formula doesn’t look that complicated. The good performances come when Wire match or better their opponent’s energy and enthusiasm.

From there, the aggressive running and defending helps them win the battle down the middle and good things happen after that.

Ultimately it will all come down to the play-offs, but ideally you want as much momentum and the belief that goes with that going into them.

Wire are starting to look a lot closer to the rest than they are to the best, before the play-offs they want to have that reversed.

It is time for this Wire team to establish the identity that they will be remembered for in 2019.