Theres not many of the players like mcrae and even less like simms at the moment there is a bad atmosphere around the camp - fact

We are now in the"We are talking rubbish" state in that we have had an unnamed player, a young player in the first team squad being quoted.

Now we have another stab at McRae and Simms, can you name the players who have said that there is a bad atmosphere in the camp?Don't forget we went through this previously with other coaches and did it do any good?

From what I have seen when the players are together at training/rehab they appear to be happy in each others company and when asked their opinions of the poor start to the season they seem to want to turn it around.

I feel that the coach has not made the decisions that I would have made but I am not the coach and he is but some of the comments on here must be coming from primary school children, no they are too childish for that, sorry children.

How often do we squeeze the life out of anyone? We've won one Superleague game in the last 13.

Correct!

Rob we all know you like to look at the positives in everything we do and we all know you have this crazy idea that if we all believe that we'll win then our positive energy or whatever it is you always waffle on about will sweep across the pitch to our players and we'll start winning. Well I'm sorry sonny it just' doesn't wash with me, we don't "squeeze the life out of teams" like Iain says 1 super league win in our last 13 suggests we don't. If there was ever game we were going to squeeze the life out of a team Friday was it, and yet again we failed. The tactics are poor they were last season, they are this season there have been two perfect examples already this year.

The cross field bombs against Crusaders. All that well we had injured players out there doesn't wash with me either there were plenty of things defensively we could have tried. We could have moved Smith and Ratchfords positions in defence around so Ratchford was defending out wide with McGilvary and M.Smith was defending in the other centre with Broughton as it was clear they couldn't cope. He could have even moved Sibbit to defend in the centres and add a bit of height and if it didn't work at least he had tried something.

Onto the Bradford game, we were standing flat, not running onto the ball, that half backs were running sideways before they went forward, we did the same move from dummy half every time, where Alker/Smith would jump out and hit Swain/Sibbit/Sidlow on a drop off into the markers or if we were lucky the hooker would jump out of halfback show the ball in a dummy drop off then just drop the second man off instead. The halfbacks also seemed to go down the blindside a lot when we didn't have numbers. Twice in the second half Holdsworth jumped down the short side and fired a pass to Henry who came in on a good line only to be smashed and drop the ball. One key thing for me was the kicking game (yet again) why oh why didn't we try the little chip over it was on all the time I could see it from a mile off. Halley was standing deep as were the two wingers because they knew the ball would be coming right to them. If Ratchford or Holdworth just took the ball to the line had Fitzy following up and chipped a little one over the top I recon it could of worked or at worst at least put some doubt in the fullbacks mind so next time he didn't stand as deep and maybe we'd get a chance of kicking the ball and turning him.

I'm no super league coach don't get me wrong so I'm not going to go on anymore, but these are just of the little things that are so noticeable to me watching

Good post Ave it.

We are just so predictable its as if we must do this and then we must do that. No flair - nothing off the cuff. Its dull and frankly very tedious to watch. I said on another post that the opposition Coach only has to watch ONE video and he will be able to cover all eventualities.

This year we seem to have some young lads with a bit of awareness - Ratch, Gibson, Broughton, Matty, Houldsworth etc - yet its the same old drill - Alker in slo mo - 4 drives and then a hapless kick.

We deserve a lot better.

We are so predictable even Mystic Meg could predict how we are going to play.

Been the same since he came.
He is squeezing any flair and skill out of players with his slow run into the markers hopeful punt style of play.
Check how many games have been in won in SL with the slug in charge,it is shocking.

i have just watched (on another thread) when we beat wigan in the challenge cup in 1996 (14 years ago!!) . How i wish we could be anyway near as good as that at present

any chance we could persuade Mark Lee out of retirement

we did the basic things right i.e backing up and try to pass the ball when being tackled , grubber kicks near the try line etc. if only we could add some flair/quickness/initiative to our play (our defence was much improved against leeds and bradford) and with our squad im sorry but we should have this.My opinion is its not a case of a squad with limited resourses but a coaching set up not getting the best out of it as do wakefield , castleford,crusaders

etc.

I do feel this part of our games need improving, the lack of dummy runners is a concern but to be fair the same question could be where are all the support runners, the only difference between a dummy runner and a support runner is one gets the ball and one doesnt.

For me its more about players being "active" and "not active" in an attacking move do they feel they have enough in the tank (to run thou as a dummy runner, turn round run back (avoid being caught obstructing the next play of the ball) and get into position to be part of the next move) If your willing to give that extra 10% and get back on side and in position for the next play you will get your rewards in this area.



We are unable to complete the job as we cough up the ball in silly ways, or give penalities away unnessesarly, If they just concentrated on keeping the pressure on our opponents rather than releasing the pressure valve with a poor kick or a penality our success rate would be higher.

Teams do it to us all the time, they know we'll "bottle" it when push comes to shove because the players mentally struggle to handle the pressure of superleague rugby

In particular the campaign in the National League where we ground out results every week through our superior strength and fitness. I watched Barrow v Leigh last week and even though Barrow didnt play very well, they were ambitious in attack and spread the ball at every opportunity. Proved to be an entertaining game to watch.

Its all about not turning the ball over in silly areas of the field, play your sets out and force an error, when you get a chance take it, its simple (straight out of the Odsal Red school of coaching that one



).

Id take salford winning a dull uneventful match over salford losing a fast flowing entertaining game of Rugby league

I would take us just winning at the mo


13 games since a win paints it own sad story, boring rugby,no flair need I go on.
I carry on going in the hope that someday just someday we might come good.
McRae is really trying my patience though

Can't wait to hear another set of excuses.

The facts don't lie.......................WE ARE ROCK BOTTOM.................and deservedly so!!!

The club cannot afford to sack him, he should do the honourable thing and walk.

Sad to say that I cannot see a way out of this.

I'm embarassed by the ground, the support, and today, the performance of every single player.

Unfortunately the fans who care can only stand and watch, but this evening I'm very annoyed at what I have seen.

i didn't join in the boo's tonight because i dont think it helps any but the 2 games this season when you'd say we've got a great chance to win, the players just havn't performed. Ratchford has just gone backwards i think and holdsworth just doesn't seem the same player that i seen at hull kr and against celtic! Think his best position has got to be loose forward coz scrum half just isn't working for me!

It was not a good peformance. Mcrae does seriously need to consider if his role as coach is in the best interest of the club. I will however continue to support MY team 100 percent , unlike the utter shower of s@*t singing in the middle of the shed , how these people think that the songs they sing are clever , beneficial or influential are totally deluded. Support is what is needed , a young team low on confidence need our support through what is going to be a hard season.

COME ON REDS.

It would help if the rest of the team didn't stand watching him and tried running off him and giving him options.

i'm not having a go at him, i think he is a class player but doesn't seem to have much of an influence at scrum half! True about the players around him giving him options but he isn't running at the line much either trying to create something. Once again our kicking game was terrible.

You are following the wrong code if you want dull uneventful rugby

Shaun McRae once got very upset when defeated his St Helens team. Seems he is now finally getting his revenge. There are young players whose whole careers rest on his decisions.

Is it McRae's fault though.

We have a hooker who takes our forwards backwards and a centre who was never good enough to play in the super league still with the club 10 years later. McRae needs to grow a set and get Alker and Littler out of the team. His tactics against bigger teams, although negative, don't seem to bad. In the games we need to be winning he has come up woefully short. If we don't have the muscle in the forwards then we need to move the ball. Here lies the Alker problem again his play the ball is so slow that our forwards are getting clobbered and gives the opposition far too much time to rush forward, so we have no hope of moving the ball out wide.

Are you sure about that after tonights performance,

So let's say the axe does fall on McRae, who do we bring in? What quality coaches are available? More importantly what quality coach would want to come to Salford?

get a young aussie coach, dunno if there is any about but shudds and wigan have done ok.

Weve been playing like that for the majority of the last 3 years. I dont like it and that was my earlier point

Not sure the slow play the balls are all Alker's fault. We rarely land on our front and the refs this year are a lot more lenient on holding down. His distribution from dummy half has always been inconsistent though

Not sure the loss tonight can be put down to Mcrae though. We were following the game plan and doing nicely, keeping them mostly pinned in their half with long kicks and starting to create the space to move the ball around a bit.

Then Alker pointlessly touches the ball after it's passed (no way was there an interception chance) and gives them another set of 6 that they score from. In the second half Gibson makes a complete town halls of an attempt to stop a kick from going into touch (it wasn't anywhere near a 40-20 either catch or leave it to bounce into touch) which gives them good field position and they grow in confidence. Smith passes into touch on the 2nd/3rd tackle in pur own half - they score. Henry cocks up a catch and so and so on. Our short kicking game was pants and with plenty of possession in their 20 we didn't force one drop out

You could see when they stuck to the plan they did OK. In the last 5 minutes there was a good set move from a scrum followed by another set move or two which got us about 60 metres (came to nowt and was too little too late but showed that they are clearly coached set moves).

Having said that I don't know where Mcrae can take them. They are either not good enough or not inspired enough to follow his plans. There is no flash rugby in super league these days its all about possession and territory so I don't mind Mcrae's tactics that much. The tactics are very similar to Harrisons but his team executed them better (he also seemed more focussed on the little battles - landing on your front, quick play the ball, getting them on their back).

We threw it around more tonight than we have been doing. There just doesn't seem to be a player that can make the difference for us - over the years we've usually had a player for us that could do something to win a game for us - Myler, Robinson, Blakely, etc. Can't see one of these in this team