Salford Red Devils vs Leeds Rhinos Predictions: George’s tipping run to continue?

Salford Red Devils snapped out of a two-match losing run with a hard-sought Betfred Super League win over Castleford Tigers and on Saturday welcome a Leeds Rhinos side with their own eyes on sneaking into the top six (kick-off 17:30 BST, live on Sky Sports Action).

The Red Devils are fifth, the Rhinos seventh, and with four points separating the two sides this feels very much must-win for Leeds to make the play-offs.

Salford Red Devils vs Leeds Rhinos Odds

In what is a tight one to call, Paul Rowley's Salford are slight favourites at 4/5. Leeds can get picked up at 11/10, with the 80-minute draw and a subsequent spell of golden-point extra-time priced at 16/1.

Team News

Salford make just one change to their squad for the visit of the Rhinos, with Chris Atkin returning to take the place of Cade Cust, who did not feature last weekend.

Samoa centre Tim Lafai looked sharp on his return last week having been out for a month with a hamstring injury.

Veteran prop Adam Sidlow has seen his loan move to League 1 leaders Oldham extended for the rest of the season. Ben Hellewell, Matty Foster and Jack Ormondroyd are all still out.

Versatile Chris Hankinson found himself dropped to the bench last week having excelled at full-back, wing and centre this season, and found himself playing in the pack when he came on for the last 15 minutes. He still obliged to see our anytime try scorer tip return at 6/4.

Rugby League Odds

Leeds welcome back France forwards Justin Sangare and Mickael Goudemand after injury. Sangare has missed the last three games with a knee injury, Goudemand has been out with a shoulder problem.

Sam Eseh has gone back to Wigan Warriors following his loan spell. Winger David Fusitu’a remains sidelined, while Tom Holroyd and Morgan Gannon are long-term absentees.

Handicap 3-way Alternative 2: Salford Red Devils -8 @ 19/10

Leeds have won the last two meetings with Salford in Super League and will be full of beans after last week’s win at the Huddersfield Giants. The Red Devils snapped out of a mini-lull to steady their play-off ambitions with that Castleford win and I make the home side favourites here.

Having been at both of those games last week, I was left feeling Salford right now are a far better side than Leeds. That Rhinos win at Huddersfield was pretty ugly – in fact even though Leeds eased home 34-6 I think that against any of the top six they lose that game playing like they did.

Salford had Lafai back and finally a pretty strong bench too – it’s not bad when you can drop Hankinson to the bench despite him having been one of the standout players this year.

I had Salford to win by 6-10 points last weekend at 9/2. They won by eight with Hankinson starring off the bench to land our 6/4 tryscorer tip too.

I feel the Red Devils will win by a similar margin this week to dent Leeds’ play-off push and boost their own. The Rhinos have bags of talent and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Brodie Croft and Andy Ackers star back at their old ground for the first time since leaving.

But I feel Salford are managing games better, with Marc Sneyd pulling the strings, Kallum Watkins the cool head, and real strike all over the pitch.

Nene Macdonald Anytime Tryscorer @ 6/5

Macdonald has been a standout performer of this Salford season. He left Leeds under a cloud when the Rhinos felt he was going home rather than signing for another Super League club.

And at the Salford Community Stadium he is arguably in the form of his life. He scored the Red Devils' try last weekend and had another ruled out. He is always a threat and I feel he may enjoy playing against this Rhinos defence. At 6/5, that's a 45.5% implied probability.

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