GAMES in which the results pales into insignificance in the context of what happened around it are, thankfully, quite rare.

Unfortunately, however, this was one of those occasions as all thoughts immediately turned to the wellbeing of a fine young player and an upstanding young man.

The immediate levels of distress among Leon Hayes’ Warrington Wolves teammates when he stayed down following a perfectly innocent tackle meant it was clear his injury was a serious one, and the sight of him needing to be stretchered off with his ankle braced and with gas and air required to keep him comfortable was heartbreaking.

The fact he found it within him to acknowledge the cheers from all four sides of the Salford Community Stadium shows the character of the man who has now likely seen a breakthrough season brought to a premature end, and everybody’s good wishes go with him.

Would The Wire have protected or even extended the one-point lead they had with Hayes on the field? Predicting that seems unfair but once the dust settles, they will have to pick the bones out of only their third defeat of the season.

And while the two they suffered against Catalans Dragons earlier this year were in games that were at best 50-50 in terms of predictability, this is a new one given it came from a match Wire were well-backed to win.

Credit must go to Salford, who did enough to edge a game that was sloppy and error-strewn on both sides as well as being fragmented and stop-start. They were the more convincing side on the day and their victory was a merited one.

Warrington, by contrast, were below-par in terms of performance for the second week in a row and while they found a way to get themselves over the line against Leigh, they were not so fortunate this time.

Has the Challenge Cup win at St Helens taken more out of the tank than we thought? Have minds already started to wander towards the semi-final against Huddersfield Giants? Those questions can only be truthfully answered by people within the dressing room, but there is an undercurrent of concern about the past two displays.

They were beaten through the middle again, this time with all of their front-line forwards bar Zane Musgrove available against a Red Devils pack shorn of King Vuniyayawa’s services early on due to a failed HIA and including a player in Gil Dudson deemed surplus to requirements at The Halliwell Jones Stadium.

Their previously red-hot attack was blunted for the second straight week while there will be frustration aplenty about the softness of the two first-half tries they conceded.

Despite all of that, however, it is absolutely not time to panic.

The fact they once again managed to keep themselves in the game despite not playing well is a promising base level – despite their shortcomings, it was clear they were still very much battling for each other out on the field.

Every season has its peaks and troughs and while this can not yet be considered the latter, their response to this will certainly be telling.