Ian Watson described his sides 32-14 defeat in their Super 8s opener against Hull FC as a game of two halves and feels early stages of the second half changed the game.
Watson said: “I thought we started the game pretty but the first half and second half were two different games all together for us.
“First half we were pretty good to be fair and the second half we just turned over too much ball.
“We were defending too much and we turned into the team we saw at the start of last season and we didn’t understand what to do when you find yourself under the pump.
“We’ll need to look at that because we don’t want to fall back into the team that we were last season.”
The Red Devils went into the break level with Hull following tries from Manu Vatuvei, Niall Evalds and Robert Lui but a slow start to the second half cost Salford.
Watson said: “We’d kind of turned the game a little bit obviously they got the penalty on half-time which made it level pegging.
“We felt like the first 15 minutes of the second half was going to be key and we said Hull FC would come strong in the first 15 minutes and it was about how we controlled that period.
“I think it was Niall Evalds who almost scored in the first few minutes of the half but we didn’t take our chance.
“Hull had some relentless pressure on our goal line and we didn’t handle our goal line defence as well as we should have done.”
Next up for Ian Watson’s men are league leaders Castleford Tigers on Friday 11th August at the The Salford Stadium. Fans can still purchase tickets through the club ticket office, over the phone or online via the club website.
