Salford coach's job on line after another defeat
Salford 18 London 4
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Your support makes all the difference.Steve McCormack's job as Salford coach hangs by a slender thread this week after another demoralising defeat in front of the lowest ever Super League crowd at the Willows.
McCormack admitted that he would be considering his future overnight after seeing a demotivated side beaten out of sight in the first half.
If London had chosen to continue at full throttle, there is no saying how many points they might have scored, but they eased off after the break to spare the Reds too much further torment.
It was the same old problems for Salford, with basic defensive failures allowing the Broncos to score five first-half tries. "If people go around you, you can accept it,'' said McCormack. "But every try in the first half was scored between the sticks.''
That pattern was set when Jason Hetherington, making a huge difference to the Broncos on his return from injury, darted over from dummy-half after eight minutes. Dennis Moran then split the home defence to send Steele Retchless over and, although Jason Nicol got one back for Salford, their punishment continued when the impressive Rob Purdham put Jim Dymock through.
London had two more tries disallowed before Hetherington engineered a pair of virtually identical efforts, scored from close range by Richard Moore and Russell Bawden.
Bawden ambled over again 10 minutes into the second half and, when Retchless sent Ritchie Barnett away for the seventh Broncos' try, it looked as though they might go close to the 74 points Castleford scored at The Willows in April.
But the London coach, Tony Rae, chose to take some of his outstanding contributors off the field for a well-earned rest, whilst the introduction of Francis Maloney gave Salford a glimmer of the life they had been lacking.
Maloney scored two late tries to make the scoreline look marginally more respectable, but McCormack refused to take much comfort from that. "The game was lost at half-time,'' he said.
McCormack added that he would "sleep on it'' as far as his role at the club is concerned. His chairman, John Wilkinson, already has a board meeting scheduled for tomorrow at which the side's depressing form will obviously be discussed.
"I still believe Steve is one of the best young coaches in Britain, but it just isn't happening for him on the pitch and I feel for him,'' Wilkinson said.
Salford: Gibson; Hancock, Nicol, Broadbent, Littler; Marsh, Goulding; Corvo, Alker, Baynes, Ebrill, Jowitt, Wainwright. Substitutes used: Maloney, D Highton, P Highton, Watson.
London: Barnett; Wilkinson, Martin, Toshack, Hall; Purdham, Moran; Marshall, Hetherington, Cram, Retchless, Evans, Dymock. Substitutes used: Bawden, Moore, Stephenson, Gillett.
Referee: R Silverwood (Mirfield)
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