A simple request prior to the Saints game - Will the real Ian Watson stand up please?

Is it the one credited with bringing lovely fast flowing rugby (now referred to as 'Rowleyball') to Salford?
Or is it the one who presides over 5 drives and a hanging kick - ad nauseam - and brings no change / plan B when it's crying out for something new?

It has been said that individual errors cost us last night & we should have 'ground the game out' at 4 points in front and yes, maybe that's true. But to me it's the underlying ethos being developed that's concerning here.
You've had the time, you've certainly had the money (albeit thinly spread over similar). Now let's break out of those shackles and have a proper go at the Saints on Thursday.

Or is that too 'Elementary my dear Watson'?

ps Nice to see 'Seb' back with some fire in his belly last night.

I'm thinking it's his style of football and there is no plan B. Oh to be watching the Kind of stuff Salford are playing now. We have a big squad and a good one by and large especially in the forwards but we have no style at all, just boring up the middle drives interspersed with the odd good individual moves and it will win us nothing and it certainly wont bring in the missing crowds

I think he had Hastings and Lussik at Salford who play that fast running game. Apart from Tui our spine is pretty conservative or inexperienced. I'm hoping Connor will add real flair in the halves. Also Fages is always injured, makes consistency tough. Losing the pace of Levi has had an effect too.

As i said on another post apparently it was Gleeson sorting out attack at Salford not Watson. I'm afraid we are stuck with our plodding style, what a waste of Ken's cash for this absolute drivel no wonder crowds are so bad. If we lose to saints that will be all our rivals lost to at home and Watsonw ill stay say 'it just needs a few tweaks'! No mate you need to actually play rugby not this boring no risk batter it up the middle crap we serve up every week. Big call, but we need to get somebody in who can actually use the squad we have. Interesting to hear Rushton say in his interview 'Watto coaches totally differently to back in the NRL'. What they don't say 'take penalty kicks at goal because you are incapable of getting over the line' , and 'stick it up your jumper for the last 20 minutes of a game if you are ahead in the NRL?

Last year was boring to watch but at least we got results, now with more money spent it's both boring and fruitless. Already lost more games at home than the whole of last year. Nevermind, let's continue following the processes! Ken needs to follow the process and find someone who can actually coach a side to play rugby

I like Watson as a coach but this season he needs to deliver some kind of silverware with the squad he's been able to assemble.

Just my opinion but for the vast recruitment we've made, we are very light on the wings, to the point where Cudjoe (a great centre) is playing wing.

It feels like we've over compensated in certain areas compared to others.

Yea we have far too many good forwards, some of them will look for game time elsewhere soon i'm sure. You are correct about the wings, but we don't really score tries in the backs anyway! Look at the decent teams this year, French and Field score tries for fun at Wigan, Warrington have Ashton scoring regularly and Johnson at Catalan got a hat trick this week. We toil away in the opponents half for set after set going nowhere then they make a single break and a speedster scores down our end. Watson has recruited to play a shockingly dull brand of rugby and it isn't even getting results

Just watched the wigan game back again on giantstv and it's clear that all the problems come from the lack of quality in the spine of the team. The forwards are immense, Rushton looks class, Seb looked back to his best, they created the perfect platform. Russell and Pryce can do nothing against a good defence that is up quick on them, they take bad options, put in poor passes and fail to get the ball out wide when we have the numbers. Pryce has a great step and pace and that's it, Russell doesn't even have that, he has a decent kicking game and nothing else, hes a championship half at very best. Lolohea is also having nowhere near the year he had last year so far and Peats is a pure plodder who can pass from dummy half take the odd scoot that causes no impact whatsoever. We are going to be totally reliant on what Connor brings to the table because the rest of our spine is miles off whats needed at this level. Such a shame with the great pack and decent outside backs we have.

Very interesting line up to begin with, Tui missing through injury, Cudjoe dropped to 18th man.

2 silly mistakes yet again, you can't keep making these same kind of mistakes weekly, the teams in the SL are far too good not to take advantage.

Decent try by Goilding, hopefully Connor will come on & make a huge difference.

SO frustrating watching our toothless spine waste chance after chance after chance after chance. Russell is like a rabbit in the headlights , that kick he TELEGRAPHED through on the 3rd tackle right at the end sums up his ability under pressure, When will watson realise he will never be superleague standard!?!? Made me laugh when Watson said he didn't need leeming because he is hapy with our spine we have the WORST spine in the whole competition (bar possible Wakefield). How long before our forwards get utterly sick of putting us in scoring positions only for our halves to take the wrong option AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN!

Sorry but the fault lies with waston here, you could see this at the end of last season and he should have looked to sign spine players as a priority. Instead he blew money on YET MORE forwards when we already had just about the best pack in SL. All he will achieve is some of them will want to leave soon due to not enough game time, and we will still be stuck with Russell and Peats gobbling up good ball and pi**sing it out.

How much impact did 'better all round game than Levi' Peats have on the back of our go forward. That's right ZERO!

I'm starting to get highly frustrated with our total lack of ideas when it comes to being 10m within their try line, we had numerous chances to win that tonight & yet again failed.

If & when Tui is back, I'd have him at FB, with Pryce & Connor in the halves, Russell isn't good enough if you want to be challenging for those league titles.

Fair play to Saints & their D tonight but we aren't quick enough, we're far too lethargic when we have the ball & so easy to defend against.

As I said in a previous thread, we've over compensated in the forwards/2nd row but have zero wingers.

Is Jerry struggling with a knee injury? He's been a huge loss so far this season & we haven't replaced him either.

I knew Levi would be a big miss but I didn't realise how big a miss he would be.

Peats may have had a decent NRL career but he's done imo.

Every dog has his day, some players keep their pace into their 30's (like naiqama) some lose it early and Peats is definitely in that category which is why he was in the lower division. We are just so imbalanced in terms of the quality in the team. If he was a backup and a non quota player on a short contract it would be ok, But hes a quota player, playing week in week out on a 3 year deal, nice little retirement package for a player well past his best, he should be seeing his career out with Toulouse, instead he's in a team trying to go for honours, Go figure

well that wasn't our worst performance but in truth it was more of the same, Maybe with Conner back we shall improve, I agree about Russell he is just not good enough, if we are serious about competing with the top teams we have to find better but listening to Watson he seems quite happy with the way things are going.
we only lost to a penalty tonight but we had enough ball and field position to win it, the pack continue to get us up there but we just don't have the skills to do the business. I got the feeling when Luke Robinson was talking that he was aware of the problems but that may just have been me hearing it wrong. It may be that when we get a couple more wins and with Conner back we start to fire but i just dont see Watson changing his style some how . He seems confident we have it right and it will all come good in due course

Again total nonsense suggesting we have the worst spine in SL.
Wigan’s 6,7 and 9 are not great and Hull and Cas have terrible spines.

I, for one, was left much happier by the way we performed last night.
Yes we lost at home again and by the same frustratingly close score, but at least we had a good 'go' at them.
We can argue the toss about the personnel brought in since last year, but the reality is, that's not going to change now.
Some serious work needs to be done to turn possession and pressure into points and I'm hopeful we can do that over the next few games.

We have a tremendous asset in Kevin Naiqama, but have yet to find a way to bring him into the game and unlock his obvious potential.
I can see the half back permutations will continuing for a while, but get there we will given time.

Perhaps the bookies got it right weeks ago and we are only really middle 4 contenders?
In which case our hope (pointed out a few times on this board) has to be, that we bring everything together for the play offs.

Salford next, how ironic!

I thought both sides were pretty similar in terms of ability last night, Saints just that bit more grit and were ruthless with the small chances they got.

Think Huddersfield are nailing the Watson tactics, stay in the wrestle and complete high. Just missing that clinical execution at the top end of the field but I'd expect that to come with a first choice spine playing regularly. Fages, Connor and Lolohea all missed a few games already and you'd have to have Pryce involved somewhere too, he has that bit of unpredictability and keeps the defence guessing. Marsters had some nice touches aswell albeit in an unfamiliar position, plenty for you guys to get excited about if you can build through the season.