Cheated
I don't believe Harris picked Locke? Having him the team completely upset the balance jones bishop spent the first half covering Locke. I am speechless.

They dare beg the Salford public to turn up again, incompetent on and off the pitch. No excuses with this squad Saints never got out of second gear. Brought potential new fans tonight and like me they probably won't bother for the foreseeable future. Disgrace as always, nothing changes with the set up there either bar staff were a joke. All in all tonight rammed home the fact nothing will change.

I'm not looking for a fight here but Salford fans didn't exactly turn up tonight either.

I'm guessing the Docs frustration is as much with that as with his team

Team like that? Did you watch the game?

Chin up guys. Its difficult getting on the wrong side of results like these, but cmon, you were playing last years champs.

I watched the game and for the first 15 you looked ok. 14-6 I thought you may push on and cause some trouble to saints who had one eye on next week, but alas not to be. They beat you up down the middle and to be frank, a few players you put out tonight should be not pulling the jersey on again.

In fairness people turn up in numbers to watch a winning (successful) team and the Salford public haven't really had one since the 1970's. It's not just about signing this player and that player it's about doing the business on the pitch. And don't forget the people in Salford are already spoilt for choice with United and City.

Why would they when they never know what sort of performance that Salford are going to put in?

Surrender monkey performances like that are hardly going to inspire a family to get home from work early, sort the kids out, jump in the car, fight through traffic, park up,buy match tickets, wax X amount on drink / food etc watch the team get bent over, fight their way out of the carpark and arrive home knacked, when its available on sky is it? If Salford were handing out batterings like saints gave just gave out on a regular basis then that would draw them in. Its easy to entice folk to a successful team, much, much harder to get them to a struggling / newer team.

If I were Marwan, id be pretty miffed too, but who's advising him?

I've tried desperately over the years to be upbeat, but after witnessing that I can't muster praise on any level.

Myself and my mate matched Locke warming up and it couldn't have been more obvious he wasn't remotely fit, it can only (as I hoped openly on here wasn't the case) have been a publicity thing. Evalds would have offered more and fresh injury aside lasted the game. As are kid hinted at the other day I fear Locke will soon become Crock.

Why have our best back rower carting the ball up the middle then having too spell him after 18 minutes. we have more than enough front row cart horses who could have taken this position.

Earth calling Rangi, come in Rangi. I thought the press was he could work too a game plan? - He so obviously can't.

Long left from the kick off, the oldest and most outdated tactic in RL. FFS try something different. I could give you 3 or so variations I've thought of myself.

I'm sorry but I've had enough of the false dawns, there can be no more excuses this year, fail and I call it quits.

Best consigned to history.

Two games in it's not a crisis yet. I'm upset that my team has conceded fifty at home. Not acceptable.

But there's a long way to go yet. They can pull it out, but we can't ever. Ever. Capitulate at home like that again. Against anyone.

Well, I didn't think we'd win tonight but I didn't see that kind of thrashing being on the cards at all. The bit that was really scary was that they put 50 on us with Jon Wilkin at half back, can you imagine what the score would have been if Luke Walsh had played? I shudder to think. I also don't buy into the 'oh you've had an off day against the champs' bit either, we were awful and showed not a bit of character or resilience.

Apart from BJB's brilliant individual try, there were simply no positives to draw out of tonight. What I will say though is, that every single player in that 17 tonight owe us all a set of top quality performances that include passion, effort and perseverance over the remainder of the season after that debacle.

I just hope that shockingly unacceptable performance has hurt and embarrassed our players. Hopefully it will be the catalyst to inspire them to bigger and better things.

Probably the same people who were advising him last week when we did so well at Warrington.
It was bloody awful tonight.
It happens in sport.
Why did it happen.
Picking Locke when clearly not fit had an entirely predictable outcome. Who's decision was that?
Phil Clarke picked up,about halfway through the first half,that we were struggling to keep up. Was that because of the tight turnaround ,playing Saturday and Thursday ?
Playing Rangi at scrum half much of the time didn't work.
Theo made an impact when he came on but was no different to the rest by the end.
Thought Hansen was probably the only one can look himself in the mirror,possibly Darrell Griffin too.
Caton Brown and centre Griffin looked terrible

Niall Evalds was he injured? not even on the bench he has a good game at Warrington then he's Dropped and his replacement goes off injured AGAIN What a joke.

I feel physically sick after that tonight. After 25 years of utter e, bar a couple of seasons, this should be the start of something new, something special. Yet I feel lower now than that night in Pendleton church, seeing the club I love on the verge of extinction. Marwan deserves better, the fans deserve better but we take one step forward and then five giant steps backwards. To then rub salt in the wound I then have to suffer pr1cks from other clubs gloating on our board because they've got f*ck all better to do. Absolutely devastated.

I think if a decent coach comes in who can put some defensive structure in place, this team can be very successful.
However, there are few natural defenders in the team.
Locke - not a defensive full-back, but excellent attacking abilities.
Jones-Bishop - seems to struggle to maintain his position on the wing in defence, struggles under the high kick.
Caton-Brown - no positional sense.
Chase - can't seem to stay in the line.
Dobson - can't tackle.
Fages - a hooker has to be able to defend the middle channel. He can't. He's a half-back who is too good to leave out, but playing him at 9 is not the answer.
Unfortunately, you just can't carry this many weak defenders and expect to compete with the best teams.

Just a few thoughts,

I thought you came out of the blocks like a top team and for 15 minutes you looked better than Saints and they looked rattled and it was played at an incredible pace and intensity. At about the 15 minute mark as the scrum was forming both sets of forwards were really gasping for air but some how Saints seemed to get the breath back quicker

I thought that in their attempts to get a quick play the ball the players propelled the ball backwards with the foot too hard and it caused problems for the acting half.

Gaz Hock could be amongst the best forwards in RL but at times he seems as if he wants to get sent off.

Whats happening with Rangi, he looked none existent tonight.

I genuinely think you now have a great set of young backs who do need time to develop/gel and improve communication both in attack and defence.

Should Locke have played?

I think the desire is deffo there or why else would they have looked so shell shocked behind the posts.

I've said before on here its being over ambitious to expect attendances to double, treble, and quadrable overnight, just be happy if you are building up slowly and the majority of new fans are permanent.

Saints were on fire tonight and probably caught you on the worst 60 minutes you'll play all season.

Lastly some one mentioned a succession of false dawns, I hope this one isn't but who keeps providing/promising the false dawns. All you can do is to continue backing your club and hope it all comes good.

I don't think you have too much to worry about.


You will stay up.

He needs to be the focal point for every attack. He does not play as part of a partnership.
At Cas, when Rangi was at his best we played him as the only half back and added an extra forward. Everything went through him. He knew he was the only one responsible for making something happen, and he rose to the challenge.

I really want Salford to be a top a top team but unfortunately wasn't too surprised by the Saints win but the gap in quality in performance was quite a shock.
Not anti Harris but I was very surprised when he was appointed. You have a team made up of Mavericks and quality guys coming to the end of their careers.
In my opinion you need a top class coach who can instill much needed structure and a new conditioning team. After ten minutes your guys physically looked spent and didn't seem to recover.
Hopefully Marwan wiil open his cheque book again and go and get Maguire from Souths - I don't know anyone else who can turn you around in the short term.

You need to build from the bottom up simultaneously recruiting the top young guys from both sides of the Pennines.
Marwan isn't everyone's cup of tea but personally hope he hasn't finally lost patience but more importantly that he hasn't decided enough is enough.
Easy for me to say but try and keep your chin up and hopefully your senior players will see tonight as a turning point and start to use their brains more and just as importantly repay the faith supplied by Marwan and the long suffering supporters.
Try and keep the faith.
Good luck for the rest of the season.

In the same way as you shouldn't over exaggerate your potential (ie Phil Clarke backing Salford to win the Grand Final) you shouldn't overreact to a very poor defeat.

My team got 50 points shoved on us at home to Wigan a couple of years ago. It still wasn't a bad season for us.

From an outsiders point of view, my biggest reservation re Salford under Koukash has always been the pack. It's never been good enough in my opinion and it still isn't now. Players like Locke, Sau, Jones-Bishop, Chase, Dobson etc are nice but you need a good pack to do well in RL and in my opinion Salford's first choice pack is, at best, barely adequate.
My philosophy for a club in Salfords position would be for a big nasty set of 4 props, 1 or 2 strong running backrowers and then a load of workhorses in the pack and a decent kicker as halfback. They should be the priorities as they'd make you competitive in any game. Unfortunately, from my point of view anyway, your props aren't good enough and aren't big and nasty. You've got a strong running backrower in Hock who is quality, but also a complete moron. And you've got a quality workhorse in Hansen but not much else. You've now got a good kicker in Dobson but players like Chase and some others I mentioned earlier are luxuries and their money should've been invested in a quality pack. All in my humble opinion of course.

It's going to be a long and occasionally painful road for Salford. Progress will be slow and occasionally non-existent. But you're still heading in the right direction.

No idea who your #17 is but he missed four one-on-one goal line tackles leading to tries.

Awaits annual apology ......................

That was the worst performance i've seen from any team for a while. I'm dreading seeing MCB's stats did he make a tackle all night??? J.Walne the same i actually started feeling sorry for these 2 as they were that bad. Tommy Lee is not a good enough it's as simple as that if we don't make a host of changes for the Hull game i'd be surprised. There was nothing apart from Theo and maybe Taylor's performance from last night's game!

Not sure but Locke was nowhere near fit to play. That was a gamble that went badly wrong.

I don't think anything paid off in the end. Hock is not a prop he needs to play at second row. Sorry but one of Paterson, Hock or Hansen will have to sit on the bench. MCB needs dropping he is just a sprinter and should just cover the wings.