Salford Red Devils coach Ian Watson slams his struggling side following Wakefield Trinity loss
Saturday 2 September 2017 00:00, UK
Salford coach Ian Watson was angered by his struggling side's 43-18 Super 8s defeat to Wakefield at the AJ Bell Stadium.
Jacob Miller and debutant Tyler Randell scored two tries apiece as Trinity eased to victory to cement their place in the top four of Betfred Super League.
The Red Devils' hopes of a semi-final place are fading fast as they now sit four points off fourth-placed Wakefield after winning just one of their last 11 matches.
Watson said: "It was an embarrassment - that was not what the club has been about this season.
"For whatever reason we have lost that bit of desire within the group. We made stupid errors, poor errors and we didn't have the resilience on the back of that to defend those errors.
"We should be good enough as a group to step up. We conceded some really scrappy tries from kicks and we needed a good, solid start in the second half which we didn't get.
"It feels like we've got to the eights and put our feet up. That's not good enough. When you have the opportunity to be a top-four team you have to grasp that.
"The players need to show some pride in themselves and the team and we need to rectify that. There will be some honest conversations this week."
Joe Arundel and Bill Tupou also crossed for the visitors while scrum-half Liam Finn produced a kicking masterclass with nine goals from as many attempts for Chris Chester's side.
Chester said: "I thought we were comfortable when we got a foothold in the game. We controlled the ball pretty well and were dominant for about 65 minutes.
"I was disappointed with our last tackle options but that's probably me being a bit picky. We completed sets and worked hard for each other.
"Collectively we were very good and the starting pack was pretty aggressive. We have got to continue working hard."
On Randell, Chester added: "He is a really good talent and defensively he was very good. He scored two really nice individual tries and showed some good deception from dummy half."
