Hard to gauge against a poor side. Attitude seemed much better, still no kicking game.

I agree with everything you have said. The improvement in effort was obvious and nothing more than I would have expected with a new coach coming in. I also expect to see further bits of improvement over the coming weeks.
However the best coach in the world can only get a player or team to play to their maximum ability and the trouble is, the maximum ability of this squad is simply not good enough. We have been conned by agents into making numerous gullible signings and unless we recruit several players of genuine SL class I think our days in SL are over.

Much better. Big improvement in effort.
I actually enjoyd the game overall, bar our silly mistakes and Hicks being, well Hicks.

Totally agree with this. A few weeks ago Salford would have run many more tries in against us. Given he (Brian Smith) only took over this week I was very encouraged and to see him with the players when warming was a move in the right direction for me.

Your negativity is wearing me down, I'm all for realism but I'm seriously questioning your motives for writing what you do!

That was an improved performance, no question about it.
The issues in this squad were never going to be fixed in a week so marginal improvements week on week are all we can expect. If we can add some quality to the team in 2 or 3 positions then all the better.

We don't have to get on a par with HKR, Widnes or perhaps even Salford, we do however need to be better than Bradford or Leigh by the time the middle 8s begin. So the weekly incremental improvements are the realistic goal here not suddenly turning over another Super League team in Brian Smiths first game.

We need to replace Collis, Sammut and Paea pretty quick.

We looked to be in the game for the duration and didn't seem to wane for 20 minutes like previously

Poor game management in first half other than that a good effort.

I think one way of looking at it is Salford, Hull, Widnes have probably reached a peak. I don't see them improving. Wakefield on the other hand have plenty of improvement in them and Mr Smiths the guy to get it out of them, H K R can and probably will spring a surprise or two. Its not a race and while results are important the main part of the season for us as yet to arrive , an improvement will be viewed over the coming weeks.

Better effort, most noticably running harder in to collision and an improvement in the line speed. The chase on kicks was more enthusiastic as well. But the quality of creative play with ball in hand was pretty dire (although the weather didn't help) and we didn't asked Salford enough questions defensively but maybe that will improve with time. And the less said about the kicking game the better. Unless we recruit to solve this area we will go down, simple as because it is way off where it needs to be. Hicks was Hicks and to be honest wasn't great but we got a couple of calls in our favour as well. He's the same every week and whilst he didin't help he wasn't the reason we lost. The improvements have to be tempered against who we were playing though, Salford are the second worst side in the league and like us had key players missing and to be honest i never felt like we really looked like winning the game, they always just had enough. We have a long way to go but its a step forward.

Tim smith was garbage ..end off

Again.........

If you read what Brian Smith said in his interview today was a success of sorts.

Yep Salford are an average team and todays game reflected that. We can't pretend, we were still poor.

However we did hit the small targets Smith set. Completion was ok, tackling ok and we lasted the full 80 without complete capitulation. We managed to not lose the second half, when did that last happen!

If we continue to improve gradually like this and have a few players return and maybe some new blood we could be in a position to at least compete in the bottom 4 play offs - and at the end of the day that's what we really need and all we can really expect.

Probably the biggest positive was that the rot might not be as deep as we feared.

Thought the much maligned Miller ran his blood to water - I'm afraid the lads not much of a laker but it kind of summed up the general improvement.

So well done Brian don't think anyone else could have done better after 10 days.

Improvement? Where? We employ and fly a top coach halfway round the world and still no response. Can nothing motivate this bunch of clowns? We played Salford with half a side out. Shows how far we've sunk that we regard an eight point defeat as some kind of moral victory.

A pity we didn't play them with a full side out then, we might have won.

Has anyone said "problem solved"?

Did you really expect Brian Smith to fix everything after just 4 or 5 sessions in less than a week?

Do you honestly believe that the players confidence can magically go from none to full in the space of a few days?

It was an improvement but we're coming from a long long way behind even Salford!