Ian Watson labels Salford performance “embarrassing” following Wakefield loss

James Messenger 01 Mar 2020 6:26 PM

Salford head coach Ian Watson says their “embarrassing” performance against Wakefield should act as a wake-up call to his squad.

The Red Devils slumped to their fourth defeat in five matches in 2020 after letting an 8-4 lead slip away midway through the second half.

Tom Johnstone, Bill Tupou and Kelepi Tanginoa all crossed in the space of 13 minutes for Trinity meaning Ken Sio’s second score of the match nine minutes from time was a mere consolation.

The result leaves Salford 10th, two points ahead of winless Toronto and courtesy of a superior point difference over Hull KR.

After the game, Watson said: “We didn’t play well at all, we were miles off. We got a rude awakening and we need to smarten up pretty quickly.

“Sometimes you can get too above your station of where you think you are as a group because of previous successes.

“But it doesn’t matter – you’re only as good as the last game you’ve played and we’ve not won. We’ve beaten Toronto and nobody else.

“It’s not good enough to turn out that performance at home. We didn’t complete well.

“We didn’t show enough desire in certain areas to be successful. Their middles marched right straight through us.

“They just let them run over us – it’s embarrassing as a team and individually. That will hurt a lot of players in our team.

Watson insists his team need to find a winning formula quickly if they are to repeat their 2019 heroics and challenge at the right end of the table once more this season.

“Maybe we think we’re better than what we are,” he said. “But that today will give us a rude awakening that we’re not that good.

“We need to get some stuff sorted out pretty quickly and focus on what we were good at last year, which is being a team working together, not individuals trying to do well.”