Really tried not to enter this conversation, but the current situation is precisely why we shouldn't have taken on a new coach when we were more than halfway through the season. When the confidence is up and we're on a role, the players have proven they can score tries. What they haven't done is shown an ability to defend and not get penalised for stupid infringements, when the pressure is on.

Now, thanks to four and a half years of poor coaching the problems are severely deep rooted. The main problem was McRae's lack of confidence in his own ability, a problem he passed on to the players. Then we had three seperate coaches wanting to do their own thing, and at least two with low standards. MP has a massive job to do now, he needs to make sure everyone buys into a theory of unity and establish some self-belief.

The theory of a seige mentality is not something I buy into, as it may work for the end of this season, but it won't last for an entire season of SL. My presonal opinion is we should be talking about achieving standards of excellence - sorry if that sounds like a group of buzz words - with a major emphasis on conditioning, speed of play and intensity.

One thing I've always liked about Leeds is the speed of their play, even this year without a particularly great pack they still manage to give most sides a good game. In one of their games against Warrington, Leeds played some superb rugby on the back of quick play balls. The speed of Leeds' play created broken field pocession for them, and space for their backs. Patten is particularly good in broken field and we need to find this for him, if he's to ever become the player that we signed.

A good post Lincolndevilsfan.

A lot of our defensive problems stem from fitness levels imo. MP can do very little about fitness levels this late on in the season. Poor fitness impacts on the speed of the game, your thought processes, and self-belief. Plugging gaps defensively with an unfit side is a lost cause. MP has already stated how unfit the side was, and players themselves have said how knackering the new training has been, even though MP said the sessions have not been that intensive in his opinion. Give him a pre-season and a fitter Salford side, and the gaps will slowly get plugged.

I make that our 6th SL game this season where we've conceded 50+ points, and I also make it the game where we conceded our 10,000th point in SL (total SL points conceded is 10,008 vs 6,421 points scored - if all my stats are correct)

For anyone interested here's how many games we have conceded 50+ points in each SL season (again according to my stats) -

1997 0
1998 0
1999 3 (1 at Home, 2 Away)
2000 5 (2 Home, 3 Away)
2001 6 (3 Home, 3 Away)
2002 2 (1 Home, 1 Away)
2004 1 (Away)
2005 3 (1 Home, 2 Away)
2006 0
2007 5 (1 Home, 3 Away, 1 at Cardiff)
2009 2 (both Away)
2010 5 (4 Away, 1 at Cardiff)
2011 6 (2 Home, 4 Away)

38 times in total

hey boys if we play as bad as we did last year and recently you can score six points on friday night and still win.....

I disagree reds89! We were not holding down any longer than Wigan were. my wife is a Wigan fan and I was sat amongst them yesterday and she said that there was nothing different in what the 2 teams were doing. We actually got penalised 3 times for hands in the ruck yet at one point in the second half Liam Farrell was stood up with a Salford player about to play the ball and he quite blatently had his hand on the ball while he pointed at who he was going to tackle. It was quite clear to me from 40 metres away and yet Mr Hicks could not from a mere 10 metres away. I don't claim that we are not doing this stuff... just that everyone else does it too!!! I watch SL on sky week in week out and am increasingly frustrated at the slowness of the play the ball and the interferance by all teams. Seems to me that refs only seem to be able to spot it when we do it!!!!