Ian Watson insists that he is ready to coach a player of Todd Carney’s calibre.
The former Dally M and Australia international signed for Salford last week on a one-year deal following his departure from Catalans at the end of the season.
Carney’s career has been littered with 0ff-field issues, which played a part in his unsuccessful attempt t0 return to the NRL for the upcoming season.
However, having now joined the Red Devils, Watson is confident that he and the rest of the club’s coaching staff can help the 30-year-old rediscover his best form.
“All players want to play rugby, then it’s how you manage them,” he said.
“This will be a big thing for me. We have players here we speak to day in, day out. You have to treat everyone as their own person, you can’t speak to everyone the same. We’ll take Todd as a different individual, we’ll see what type of character he is and hopefully we can work well together. I might be able to learn things off him, and he might be able to learn things off us as well.”
Salford defeated Halifax 13-6 to register their second win of pre-season, although it appeared it may have come at a cost as Justin Carney, Michael Dobson and Jake Bibby all limped off.
However, Watson confirmed that there were no major concerns, although Bibby could potentially go for a precautionary scan.
“Jake Bibby has banged his knee, he’s saying it’s not too serious but it might just be worth a scan on him. Hopefully, he’s alright.”
“Justin’s good, he just landed funny on his shoulder so we’ve just taken him off, it’s pre-season and just precaution. We need to get the minutes in them, but we want to be careful because we don’t want any other injuries like Benny (Murdoch-Masila) and Josh (Jones).”
