The clock must be ticking for Iestyn Harris at Salford

Salford Red Devils owner Dr Marwan Koukash likes using Twitter, it’s fair to say.

Indeed, many of his club’s important announcements have been delivered via the medium, with the iconoclastic doctor often using his tweets as de facto press releases.

Last night, his pronouncements took on a sinister new air, though, at least if you are Salford coach Iestyn Harris.

“I have had enough,” the good doctor tweeted, following his club’s abject 52-6 defeat at home to St Helens.

Any fans who were at the game will doubtless have felt similar, having watched a disply which must count as one of Super League’s most spineless and inept displays ever.

The defence, always a measure of any team’s real quality, was laughably bad. The team looked like they had done no drills at all.

Ben Jones-Bishop at least looked like someone with the ability to play Super League rugby. Sadly, he also looked like someone who had never caught a high ball in his life before.

He was one of the better players, however.

Gareth Hock showed glimpses of his enormous talent, before reverting to thuggish type.

The site of players pulling the hair of Saints opponents really summed up how low things had become.

There was little guidance or leadership on the pitch, and one suspects that this could be due to the conflict between Dobson’s natural instincts to take control, and Chase’s egotistical desire to be at the centre of everything.

The pivot player who looked most at home in Super League was young Frenchman Theo Fages, a player who would be coming on leaps and bounds if he was at a club with a more settled outlook.

Imagine what Daryl Powell could do with a player like Fages to mould and shape.

The nub of the issue has to come down to the coaching, though.

A squad like Salford’s should not look as poor as that team did against Saints last night. Sadly, no amount of promises and pledges by coaches to improve things really matter after a display like that.

Things are clearly rotten, and the team have been misfiring for a while now. It is not as if underperforming is a recent phenomenon at the Red Devils, it’s just that it’s reached a whole new level of rubbish last night.

While it is players who have to go out and perform, it is coaches who prepare them for their job.

It is also coaches who provide leadership and take responsibility for results. With Dr Koukash’s tweets, the clock must be ticking for Iestyn Harris now.

One wonders how many minutes he has left on his coaching clock at the AJ Bell Stadium, how many more chances Dr Koukash is willing to give him.

Tick tock, tick tock…