‘We were too soft against Leeds’
SALFORD’S fixture with Castleford today will no longer kick off in the unusual 2.30pm slot and will instead get under way at 8.15pm, following Wigan v Hull KR.
The switch has occurred because Wakefield v Leeds has been postponed on the back of more positive Covid-19 tests at Trinity.
But whatever time the kick off is, Ian Watson expects to see a muchimproved performance from his players, particularly in defence after shipping 50 points against the Rhinos on Saturday.
“That was the side of the game that hurt more than anything with us,” said the Red Devils boss.
“We were one of the best defensive teams in the competition last year, but we were soft - too soft - going up against Leeds.
“We just let them do what they wanted to do and if they play like that, they can rip any team apart.”
The horror show at the Halliwell Jones Stadium last time out was a particular surprise to the Red Devils coaching staff, who felt the playing squad had really hit their stride in the victories over Wigan and Hull FC either side of lockdown.
“When we first brought the group of players together that we recruited, we were really excited by them,” said Watson. “We thought they were probably potentially better individually than some of the players we had with us last year.
“We knew it would take time to gel and get up and running, but we felt that we did that against Wigan. Then obviously we had the delay, but we came back in really good shape, we looked really good in our skills against Hull.
“But we lost a couple of our
players - probably two of our toughest players in Dan Sarginson and Lee Mossop - and that really affected us.
“That’s the one thing we didn’t want to come up against this year - we wanted a squad that was capable of dropping in, so if we did lose players it would be the next cab off the rank, you’ve just got to come in and do your job.”
Although skipper Mossop is back in contention to face the Tigers tonight, Salford picked up four more injuries in the clash with Leeds, losing Ken Sio, Josh Johnson, Ryan Lannon and Chris Atkin. This has led to recalls for Krisnan Inu, Connor Jones and Jack Ormondroyd, while Andy Ackers could make his debut for the club.
Watson added: “It’s a massive disruption, you want to try and get the continuity of a team playing together, but these times kind of don’t allow you to do that.”
SALFORD:
Evalds, Chamberlain, Welham, Inu, Lolohea, Brown, Mossop, Lussick, Dudson, Pauli, McCarthy, Ikahihifo, Burke, Yates, Flanagan, Greenwood, Williams, Kear, Jones, Ormondroyd, Ackers.