Salford coach Ian Watson has revealed that Todd Carney could debut for the Red Devils as early as next weekend’s clash with Leeds at Headingley – and said that forward duo Josh Jones and Lee Mossop could push for England spots in 2017 following their first victory of the season on Thursday night.
A successful day for Salford started with the club being granted a visa for new signing Carney, before winning 30-20 at Huddersfield to get up and running for 2017.
And Watson said they are hopeful Carney could arrive as early as this weekend. “I spoke with Todd this morning and he’s really keen to get over,” Watson said. “He’s trying to get across by Sunday.
“If he gets a full week training, potentially he could be in the 19 for Leeds.”
Watson paid tribute to all of his squad for the way they bounced back from defeat to Wigan on the opening weekend – but said that Mossop and Jones are determined to muscle their way into England contention in the coming months.
“I don’t like singling people out but I thought Lee Mossop looked like he did when he was playing for England and Josh Jones took his try well at the end,” Watson said.
“I know they’ve not been mentioned but those two are pushing themselves for England spots.”
Meanwhile, Watson said he was satisfied with Salford’s improvement as they picked up their first victory of the season over the Giants.
“It was really pleasing on the back of the Wigan game,” he said.
“We’ve spoken about what we need to improve and we pride ourselves on that we improve as the weeks go on and we’ve put a few wrongs right in terms of what we’re doing here.
“We didn’t speak about the loss but that wasn’t my worry, we spoke about how what we’d done in pre-season we fell off from those principles against Wigan. We had some good field position against Wigan, didn’t score and we conceded straight away so this was an impressive response.”
