Head coach Ian Watson reflects on the disappointing loss against Hull Kingston Rovers at Anfield on Magic Weekend.
On the performance…
Overall, I thought it was a good contest between the two teams, we seem to have them with Hull KR but we’re just a fool to ourselves.
The way we started the game, we had four sets in their half in the first half and bombed all four of them.
We’re making it difficult for ourselves.
When we went down to 12 men, I thought we showed real character then and that gave us a shot and a chance in the game.
The way we managed the last few minutes of the game came and bit us on the backside with the penalties from Joey, trying to play down the right edge and the ball going into touch which gave them field position for Drinkwater’s try, the low kick which Derrell should’ve cleaned up.
First half, I thought was lackadaisical. We had no energy in attack, defensively we weren’t too bad, but our attack game just didn’t have the energy.
What we spoke about at half-time was having more energy in our attack and backing our defence.
Second half we decided to do that, and we got back in the game but then the discipline crocks up and Joey gives two late penalties away.
Our first half beat us.
On Salford’s position in the Super League…
Are we good enough to be up there?
Are we consistent enough to be up there?
When it comes into these big games, it’s like we get to the back end and we bottle it.
We haven’t got the strength of character to come through the tight games.
We’ve got a group of players who are committed and compete but there’s a few who are not expecting to have to dig deeper than what they’re having to do.
On Jansin Turgut…
It’s a tough situation for everybody, no one wants to be in a situation like that ever. Our thoughts are with Jansin and his family at this time but we’re there to support him, we’ve got a job to do.
For us, we needed to come here and look after our own job which was to come here, fight hard and get the points and we failed to do that.
Regardless of what Jansin’s facing and what we’re facing as a club, they’re two separate things and we need to treat them like that.
On coming back from today’s loss…
We’ve got a week off next weekend now because we’re out of the Challenge Cup to the same team again which is disappointing.
You want to be in these games and going through to the next games in the Challenge Cup as well, so we need to knuckle down and get back to some hard work.
Watch Ian Watson’s full post-match press conference HERE.
