Salford Red Devils retained their Betfred Super League status with a 44-10 victory over Toulouse Olympique XIII at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Jackson Hastings, back from a two-match ban, scored 18 points to leave the French side needing Halifax to win big at London Broncos on Saturday to keep their hopes alive of appearing in the Million Pound Game.
Hastings registered a rare eight-point try in the 13th minute, touching down before landing the conversion and adding a penalty awarded for a foul by full-back Mark Kheirallah in the act of scoring.
Absolute fan love for @JackoHastings â¤ï¸â¤ï¸â¤ï¸
— Betfred Super League (@SuperLeague) September 27, 2018
Will he still be about at Salford in 2019? pic.twitter.com/3KCSdSIY0P
After Joey Lussick barged his way over, Hastings then kicked a penalty to put Salford 14-0 ahead.
Chris Centrone and Stan Robin scored either side of half-time to give Toulouse hope, reducing the deficit to 14-10, but Salford made the game safe soon after.
Hastings kicked another penalty and then converted tries from Greg Johnson - his 50th for Salford - Niall Evalds and Derrell Olpherts.
Kris Welham marked his 50th Salford appearance with a try, converted by prop Luke Burgess from near the touchline, before Tyrone McCarthy went over at the death.
On Hastings, Salford coach Ian Watson said: “You can see the difference he makes to our team. He’s brought a new dimension to our team. Niall (Evalds) looks like an England international playing behind him.
“I hope with us getting the win tonight, he will decide this is the place for him.
The spectators have taken to him and, with the amount of love at the end of the game, I would think it would be tough for him to go anywhere else.”
Toulouse coach Sylvain Houles said: “I don’t think we ran out of energy, we panicked. We wanted to score tries and be in front. We pushed the pass a little bit too much and after that we had too much defending to do.
“We had some ball in good position but we needed to be more clinical, they defended us very well.
“It has been a huge experience, we have learned so much, and we have to make sure we take the next step next time which is Super League.”
