Richard Marshall saw his Salford side go down 40-4 away to Hull Kingston Rovers in Friday's Super League match after taking an early lead; "That is nowhere near where we want to be as Salford," he said
Friday 11 June 2021 23:08, UK
Richard Marshall conceded Salford Red Devils need to improve quickly if they are to avoid a season of struggle in the Betfred Super League.
Marshall's side were thrashed 40-4 at Hull Kingston Rovers on Friday, who made it a fifth league win of the season with a dominant seven-try performance at Hull College Craven Park.
Rovers scored tries through George Lawler, Ben Crooks, Brad Takairangi, Shaun Kenny-Dowall, Matt Parcell, Ryan Hall and Kane Linnett.
Jordan Abdull kicked four conversions and a penalty but was unable to kick the final points after being shoulder-barged by Pauli Pauli in the build-up to Linnett's score, with Rowan Milnes stepping in for kicking duties.
The Australian was shown a straight red card after the hooter and there were also yellows for Salford's Chris Atkin and Rovers' Adam Quinlan.
Ken Sio scored the first try of the match for the visitors but it was all downhill from Salford from there.
"Certain individuals in the group need to be a lot better, that is nowhere near where we want to be as Salford," Marshall said. "There are just some simple things we need to do far better, things on the edge, discipline.
"We had a man sin-binned. Our discipline is woeful at the moment. It just typifies the way we are playing at the moment we get a man sent off on the bell.
"They looked better with the ball in hand and had a good kicking game. In the second half we capitulated. It's the story of our season and it's something we need to change and we need to change fast."
Following Sio's early try Salford could have been on course for only a second win of the season and Marshall was happy with the way they opened before fading out of contention.
"We stuck to the plan and we kicked in the corner the first 10-12 minutes," Marshall said. "We had a lot of momentum and we looked like we were playing. I didn't think we were clinical when they had 12 players."
Hull KR head coach Tony Smith was impressed by the way his players defended as a team.
"I'm really proud of the way the players went about the whole game, but our defence in particular," Smith said. "We conceded a try from a kick and that was the only way they were going to score I thought.
"I think we're pretty good at scoring points anyway. Their structure was really good defensively and we had to wear them down.
"We talked about how we were going to break these people down. We were going to have to go through them at some stage and eventually that's what we did."
