Ian Watson: Salford running out of players

Salford coach Ian Watson said injuries aren’t doing his team any favours at the moment following their defeat at Warrington.

The Red Devils lost 30-14 to the Wolves at the Halliwell Jones Stadium on Friday night.

Mark Flanagan (sternum), Kris Welham (finger), Jack Littlejohn (bicep) and Josh Wood (concussion) all came away from the game with injuries and Watson said they need a bit of luck to be on their side to get a couple of players back.

He said: “We are running out of men at the moment.

“It was a great coup getting Greg (Burke) and Ed (Chamberlain) because Ed will give us something for next week.

“We are not a big squad and the lads are doing it tough for us. The guys are great, they haven’t complained when we have lost games or with what we have been doing.

“They keep turning up and plugging away. They keep working hard to get better and to fix things up and have stayed really good as a group.”

Watson credited Warrington on their strength to get the win, but is proud of his players for continuing to fight back and stay in the game.

He added: “We started a little bit scrappy in the first half but then we rejuvenated ourselves and got ourselves back into the game.

“In the second half, we were in a real arm wrestle and we just broke first but that kind of game will do us the world of good going forward.

“The arm wrestle just fatigued us and that was to do with a lot of positional changes. I’m reasonably pleased with the effort and the way we went about it.

“We need to be smarter and we need to buy into little things to make us a better team but the injuries we have picked up hasn’t helped us due to how small our squad is.”

Next up for the Red Devils is a trip to the KCOM Craven Park to face Hull Kingston Rovers next Sunday, 3pm kick-off.