We'd better go pick him up at the airport then as he's bound to be on the next flight in.

I don't like Harris because I've seen first hand that he's a poor coach who has a tendency to worm his way into positions and then use every excuse in the book in order to deflect attention away from his own inadequacy. I mean it doesn't affect me, I don't have anything personal against the guy, it's just sad to see your club and owner buying into this spin because I was looking forward to Salford finally showing some improvement and becoming a force in Super League, something that isn't going to happen with Harris as head coach. I don't see how you can claim that my stance is incoherent BTW because since Harris took over and started to 'implement his structures' you haven't won a single game.

One of the pluses about Harris is the lack of spin.He has kept his head below the parapet and just got down to work immediately.He has inherited a dog's breakfast but it don't seem to faze him despite his critics.

Seems those young 'uns he coached,and capped,before they had any experience,played for Warrington in their victory against Leeds.

Another young player is on record with the following - They'll see a lot better drilled side for a start. I think the team is a lot closer this year, we're competing a lot better against the other sides and having a new coaching team has been a really big boost.

"It's helped loads to have Iestyn Harris on board. He's always giving me little tips and trying to help me out as much as possible. I'm always improving my game because of him."

[url=http://www.mission2013.co.uk/old-site/articlef000.html?id=1320Source[/url

Paul Highton at Salford also rates him - [url=http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/rugby-league/paul-highton-backs-iestyn-harris-6945955Story[/url

I have no idea how good Iestyn Harris may be but he has been prepared to take on the job and I doubt completely that he can do worse than Noble managed in 12 very long months.

So you have trained with him? Appears that way. Do you have any quotes from players who were not being paid by Moss & Roberts at Crusaders? Or - from the kids he trained with @ Wigan?

His League track record since joining is :-

11/04/14 20:00 A Bradford Bulls SL 24-38
18/04/14 18:00 H Huddersfield Giants SL 22-42
21/04/14 15:00 A Leeds Rhinos SL 32-4
May
03/05/14 18:00 A Catalans Dragons SL 37-24
10/05/14 18:00 H Hull K R SL 16-16
17/05/14 14:45 A Widnes Vikings SL 30-24
22/05/14 20:00 H Wigan Warriors SL 4-25
30/05/14 20;00 A St Helens SL 32-12

1 win and 1 draw from 8. Look at the teams though. Last years League Winners. Saints & Leeds Away. Wigan at home. Catalans & Widnes for me were both winnable but individual errors and the Roby brainfart cost us dearly.

The Salford fans are divided on `improvement`. I personally feel there is improvement - certainly in the style of play and the awareness of IH to bring in younger players & look for pace. Remember he was a great player - an International in both codes and admired by many. Give him a chance - let him advise MK (already has) on younger players to bring in - rebuild the shanty town of a side he inherited & also cut him some slack. Time will tell.

This is exactly the spin that I'm talking about. Things clearly weren't perfect under Noble but the results were a hell of a lot better than under Harris. Noble had a 50% win record in 2014, Harris so far has 11%. And for all the things you've just posted about young players, Wales were humiliated at the World Cup and didn't even come close to winning a match despite being purposely placed into a group with the three worst nations on paper.

You can defend him and make excuses and I don't blame you as fans, you want to feel like you're progressing as a club and haven't made a backwards step, but the truth is that Harris says all the right things to get people on his side and delivers nothing. The sooner your owner realizes this, the better.

It's very interesting that "Early Bath" lives in the same village as a certain coach! Totally agree about Harris's "manipulation". He dined out on this at Wigan for far too long! Good riddance to a devious little man.

Never knew that Cliff - as for your other comment maybe the dustbin is the best place. Ill informed. Ask the Reds players how things have `improved` since his arrival here and don`t rely on `tittle tattle` from the Pie Village.

I won't see the reds players at training or games to ask them unlike you! Improved in what way?? The results? The harmony of the team? Don't kid yourself. Harris moaned that he couldn't do anything with the players in the Wales team yet you give him a bunch of superstars and he still can't get a win. Who can he blame now?

Irrespective of who the coach is,now or in the future,the name of the game is results.
Improvement is essential,but it's not an end in itself.
We need to win,and win well,against the Bulls.
Surely,a defeat would be indefensible.

So, we're a team of 'Superstars' when the argument demands it. We're 'Dads Army' according to others. Only 'Average' to yet others. I've seen arguments that tell us every player we have acquired is either overrated or second rate. Yet others tell us how some of them could walk into most teams and are greatly admired.

We can't be all these things at the same time as most are contradictory.

Do you see why most Salford fans on here get their back up whenever another 'new' poster turns up feeling the need to lecture us over some detail about a Club they maybe see twice a year? Which seems to make them an expert in the daily running of our Club somehow. Now, you may not fit into that bracket but you surely must see my point.

It’s human nature for supporters of other clubs to resent big money being thrown at any team other than their own. You really can’t win because if you do well it’s only because of the money and if you under perform people are cueing up to stick the boot in.

I remember taking some satisfaction from seeing Leeds struggle a few years ago before they eventually got their act together. Remember when they were throwing the huge money at flops like John Gallagher and David Young etc? Not that David Young was a flop for Salford he was immense.

I can't believe anything about the World Cup was not above board - and fixture-rigging would not be above board.
I have seen the inexperienced Welsh squad but I think their lack of success was down to not having warm-weather training in South Africa and not having 11 games in which to gel.
Obviously with this in mind no Super League coach would only organize 2 pre-season games.

'Old Cliffy',
I have checked through your old postings and you were making lots of postings in 2010 and far fewer since 2011.
I get the impression you are involved with the Wigan club - re team selections - or close to someone who is very involved with the club.

Bit naughty your posts on this thread.I do hope you went to Mr Lenagan and pointed out his lack of character judgement and appointment ability.

Good effort on your attempt at manipulation.



theredshed,
I am certain David Young went into coaching after he was ignored by the coaching staff at Leeds,when he arrived from the other code.( Perhaps a bit like Iestyn Harris was when he went the other way and was thrown into the international arena before he was ready )

I just cannot recall who the coach was at Leeds when he signed.Fox,Bamford,Reilly,Laughton they went through so many.

It's not 'fixture rigging', Wales were placed into a group with USA and Cook Islands, the two lowest ranked teams in the competition, and their cross-pool match was against Italy, the third lowest ranked team in the competition. Wales were given the easiest possible draw on paper and still managed to lose all three games pretty convincingly. I have no idea what the second part of your post is about but overseas training camps and between one and three trial matches is the standard pre-season routine for virtually every Super League club.

I'm rapidly warming to Harris:

“The policy is that we’re physical,” he said. “That’s the policy of any team I’ll ever coach. I want them to be aggressive and dominant. The byproduct of that is that you do hurt people at times – that’s the game of rugby league.”

Bring on the biff!

Nothing wrong with any of the above, RL is a physical contact sport, do we want it going the way of football!
Hell no, Nothing wrong with being physical, Long may it continue.

I did see on twittervers one supporter saying we were being over physical



Nah we just delt with the game and played with passion and enthusiasm

Maybe the oppo fans & trolls on this thread should read their own inaccurate comments about IH.

Jeez, I'd forgotten about this thread. Some people have really embarrassed themselves here. No surprise to see 'newgroundb4wakey' in the mix. I think he really needs to start considering the possibility that everything he knows is wrong.

At the moment, the appointment of Iestyn is looking like a masterstroke by Marwan. I wonder if some of the people on here who thought he was being impatient might want to consider the possibility that, despite being in the sport for such a short time, Marwan has a deeper understanding of the game than they do after their many years of watching. Food for thought for those with the capacity to think (I'm narrowing the field considerably there).

I'm happy to confess I was wrong about Harris .
It's the way he quickly identified the shortcomings,and rectified them.

There's usually a short term improvement whenever a new coach takes over anyway, and let's be honest the gaps that Harris has plugged were glaringly obvious to all concerned (apart from Brian Noble, apparently). Don't get me wrong I have been impressed with what Harris has done so far, and will admit to being amongst the skeptics when he was appointed, but to claim he has been a success or failure based on what we have seen so far is premature.

Absolutely. If we could predict the future, we'd all be lottery winners, and no-one in their right minds should be thinking we're the finished article or that Iestyn is nailed on for coach of the year 2015. So, given that we can't predict the future, the confident pronouncements made by various people at the start of this thread looked daft at the time, and, right now, look even dafter.

I have been massively impressed with Harris in recent weeks. He called it when he first took over and had time to take stock of our current state, we needed time to implement his methods. We’re months on now and are reaping the benefits of said methods. What has impressed me the most is our defence, we were leaking points for fun under Noble yet in the past few weeks (since Castleford away) we’ve conceded on average just 16 points per game. You see the visible impact on the pitch too, 2 or 3 men per tackle, one around the legs, the other two turning the opposition forward on their back or facing their own goal thus giving our defence time to re-set. The addition of Caton-Brown in lieu of Martin Gleeson and Josh Griffin for Francis Meli has strengthened us individually outwide too.

Our attack still has some improvement to make, but what has been exciting is our ability to score from anywhere on the pitch. We have strike players littered throughout as we seen yesterday with Caton-Brown, Johnson, Griffin, Evalds and Theo.

A swallow doesn’t make a summer, remember James Webster at Wakefield has taken points of Hull FC, Wigan, Leeds and Widnes in recent weeks too, but it’s certainly looking good for 2015.

Headhunter has gone very quiet you may have noticed. What says you now, Headhunter? Is Harris still a terrible coach. I just love it when people like him come out with nonsense like he did and then are proved wrong.

The 'honeymoon period' usually lasts for about three or four weeks into a new coach's tenure. In Harris' case, he didn't have the greatest of starts but the team has continued to show improvement week on week since then.

I'm not going to claim that he's the definitely the guy to take us forward and win things, but the initial signs are good.

We're still improving under Harris, and I see no reason to be looking for another coach anytime soon.

Next year will be the real test though. Will a full pre-season under Iestyn with a team he has rebuilt/reshaped, as he see fit, see us compete at the top...or will it be the usual Salford case of one step forwards, twenty-two long, stumbling steps back?

All the signs look good so far but it's far too early to tell...Though making the playoffs at Widnes' expense on the last day of the season, then knocking Cas out of the playoffs would seal the deal for me!

Of course, if we somehow managed to win the grand final, he needs to be offered a football-esque contract...Can't quite see that one though!

4 or 5 weeks ago ,the Widnes points difference to ours was about 120 points , due to the hard work and restructuring Harris and the boys have put in we now have a better difference than them , how crucial could that be come the last game of the season