Friday 8 July 2016 12:53, UK
Salford head coach Ian Watson is backing his players to stand firm as they wait to discover if owner Marwan Koukash is poised to walk away from the club.
Koukash, who brought the club back from the brink of financial disaster three years ago, has hinted he may quit following his failure to overturn a points deduction for breaking the Super League salary cap regulations.
A ruling by London-based independent arbitration service Sport Resolutions to uphold a six-point penalty, followed by a 40-14 defeat by Warrington on Thursday night, condemned the Red Devils to a bottom-four spot and a second successive battle to avoid relegation in the Qualifiers.
Koukash, who has fought a personal crusade against the Rugby Football League for most of his three years in the game, says he will sit down with his family to discuss his future.
Watson hopes to hold his own talks with his chairman to get a clearer picture.
"That is something that will be discussed between myself and Tim [Sheens] and then we'll probably have a chat with Marwan as well," Watson said.
"I'm sure Marwan will make his intentions clear to the playing group as well."
Koukash persuaded Sheens to take on the job of director of rugby last October, while he was still technically Australia's national coach, and he in turn appointed Watson after both had worked together on an interim basis since the departure of Iestyn Harris.
Watson said he has much sympathy for Koukash and believes others should accept their share of blame for the club's current plight.
He said: "Marwan has held his hands up and said he's done wrong but have other people done wrong in the situation as well?
"He came in with a lot of money and I think some people have taken advantage of that, there's agents, players, other parties involved in this and are they being held accountable?
"That might be a question for the RFL."
Watson is angry that the current squad of players, who have won nine of their 21 league matches so far this year, are being punished for events that happened before most of them arrived at the club.
Salford were penalised for failing to declare payments to former St Helens forward Tony Puletua and benefits to players Lami Tasi and Theo Fages, all of whom left the club at the end of the 2015 season.
"This group has been hard done to," Watson said.
"The players involved are not at the club any more and it seems tough that it's happening now, a year down the line or two years down the line.
"The club wanted players who work hard and are committed every single week and they're the ones being penalised."
Watson must now prepare his team to face Leeds, Leigh, London Broncos and three other clubs still to be determined in the Qualifiers and he is confident they will once more prevail.
"Obviously there will be probably clubs that will look at our players and want to pick them off but the group is pretty united and they know where they want to be," he said.
