In a contest which finds both teams with the same number of wins, and sitting adjacently to each other in the league table, Salford’s visit to East Hull, on Saturday promises to be a mouth-watering encounter.
Head Coach Ian Watson offers his thoughts ahead of the clash…
On opponents Hull KR…
Victories at Hull KR are always hard to come by, but in recent seasons we have had won some extremely important clashes there, such as last season’s victory in the Qualifiers, and Saturday’s game there is important now because it is the next one on the fixture list.
Rover have spent well during the close season, Mitch Garbutt being one of the players they have strengthened their squad with, alongside others such as Jimmy Keinhorst and Ryan Lannon, while their Head Coach, Tim Sheens is very attack minded.
On Sunday’s defeat against Leeds…
We allowed Leeds to determine the pace of the game, and that turned the momentum in their favour. We, then, compounded that situation with further errors such as immediately kicking off into dead, on the full, and running offside at another kick-off both of which led to further spells of goal line pressure.
What we should have done was to have turned the pressure back onto Leeds, but that didn’t happen until we had good spell at the start of the second half, which culminated in our scoring.
The sinbinning later on, though, really hurt us, not so much whilst we were down to twelve men, but in the knock-on effect, in the later part of the game. Nevertheless, at sixty minutes, having not played at all well, and having been down to twelve men for ten minutes, we were still in the game against a talented side like Leeds.
On the impact on the week’s training…
We didn’t give a true representation of what we are all about, last week, and that has hurt us all, considerably, so we need to rectify it quickly. This weekend will be all about us making a big improvement and making sure we get the defensive side of our game back on track because basically if you don’t defend you don’t win games.
The players were all extremely disappointed, and there was also the feeling that they had not done justice to themselves, nor lived up to the standards we had set ourselves.
On the trip to Humberside…
Clubs all like to win their home games, and KCOM Craven Park has always been a difficult place to go to. Hull KR will undoubtedly have set out to win all of their home games and that will certainly be the case for this weekend, so we will have to be prepared for a tough match, by going and performing as we did in the first two rounds. It’s a case of bouncing back from last week.
We are just taking it one game at a time, and getting the points on Saturday is our key objective. We’ve got to go out and put our best foot forward to give everyone a reminder of what we are working to become.
Tickets for Saturday’s game against Hull Kingston Rovers are still available from the The Salford Stadium Ticket Office and over the phone on 0161 786 1570. You can also book coach travel for this fixture by visiting the The Salford Stadium Ticket Office and over the phone on 0161 786 1570. Salford Red Devils retain 25% of any early ticket purchase. To see ticket prices and coach pick-up times and points, click HERE.
