Quote ="BartonFlyer"Shed Head - thank you for a little sense at last on this board!
Some facts that perhaps we need to reflect on:
8 teams in SL are now on the maximum salary cap (that's according to the Tony Smith interview on GMR last night) - we appear to be some £400,000 below that, if you can't pay top dollar you won't get top stars, until our crowds & income levels change that's never going to alter.
There is a massive gap between NL1 & SL - just look at Castleford last year, it took them an entire season to start to adjust, and clearly the same issues are affecting both us and Celtic! (Though why Warrington are so bad is another matter
)
Quins last night were excellent - Harlequins coach Brian McDermott:
"The first-half display was as clinical as I've seen since I've been at the club. "
I think we have to accept that every other team in SL will be targetting the Salford & Celtic fixtures as 2 point bankers and we can expect to be pushed harder in every match than we've ever seen before.
At the moment, after Wakefield & Castleford, the team look beaten before they start - the try after 90 seconds last night just rubbed that in, a simple simple error by Fitz but it just summed up what was to come!
So - is there any light at then end of the tunnel?
The questions to be asked are:
Do the current squad have the fundamental skill to compete at this level?
In general I agree with Shed head's assessment of the players, though I do wonder whether John Wilshere couldn't get involved more - seems a shadow of last year's player - move him to full back?
Is the coaching and team management up to scratch?
The $64,000 question! Let's face it Mr McCrae's record is not one of delivering the goods with average players - can he do it for us? Jury's out, but as Shed Head says, we are only 4 games in - halfway through then if we still see no improvement then sure, panic sets in, though whether the club could finance a change would I suspect be questionable. I'm not going to comment on FloridaGate as I (in common I'm sure with virtually ALL the supporters) don't know what happened.
What to do? GET THE BASICS RIGHT!!!! Why has our tackling become so abysmal? For the last three games I've watched 75% of our tackles going shoulder and chest high, often with two tacklers and both doing it!! - One low, one high - you can't run without your legs! That was the change that Karl Harrison brought - we must stop conceding and give ourselves some chance of staying in each game - 20 or 30 points down halfway through the first half and it's game over. We all want to see flair, quick hands, flowing rugby exciting tries, but not just to get back from 30 nil down to 30 18!!!! I think we need to dig in and sort out the defence.
Finally, shouting abuse at the players, coach and chairman really is self defeating. Without John Wilkinson this club wouldn't be in existence now. Criticism should always be constructive, and certainly no-one is above criticism, my note to Mr Wilkinson (for what it's worth
) is to think carefully about your advisors - clearly you are a good businessman, your track record proves that, you love Salford City Reds, recent history and hard cash proves that but have you had value for the money you've laid out? If not then who has been offering the advice on hiring & firing and has that been the best advice?'"
Barton Flyer and Shed Head thank you for restoring my faith in genuine Salford fans.
To add to your
constructive comments one should look at the kicking game that we have/have not, last night we made two decent kicks one in the first half that we scored off shortly after and another 40/20 in the second half that also resulted in a try later on.
On the other hand Harlequins and Luke Dorn in particular , continually made our players turn to collect the ball and every kick went into a space and we had to drop out several times.
With regard to the booing and abuse to the players,coaching staff, directors and may I hasten to add some of the admin staff it just shows what these morons see as acceptable, are we the family club in a family sport that we pretend to be?
Where I sit in the main stand, the spectators on the whole are just as keen and enthusiastic as anyone with one difference, they on the whole offer constructive criticism but rarely if ever come out with the stupid chants and comments such as we here on this forum and at the games.
)
) is to think carefully about your advisors - clearly you are a good businessman, your track record proves that, you love Salford City Reds, recent history and hard cash proves that but have you had value for the money you've laid out? If not then who has been offering the advice on hiring & firing and has that been the best advice?'"
