When Dr Marwan Koukash took over the Salford City Reds, he clearly wanted to do everything possible to make the club a success.
It didn’t take him long before he was making changes to the clubs management, including getting rid of the coach to bring in Brian Noble and making changes to the front office, all in an effort to rebuild a club that was dead on its feet.
Koukash hasn’t stopped there. He is now looking to provide the club with better training facilities and he has made no bones about the fact that he wants to spend what ever it takes to make the Salford Reds the best club in Super League.
I admire his efforts. Yes he is outspoken, and some of the idea he has put forward are a little out there, but this is a guy that has come in from outside of the sport and he is trying to turn a lifeless club into something meaningful. The problem is, at this stage, he needs advisers. He needs to rely on people he can trust in management positions to help him reach his ultimate goal.
Brian Noble was brought into the club as an experience campaigner. Noble had great success at the Bradford Bulls and even went on to coach Great Britain at one stage. The problem is, Brian Noble is not a good coach by any stretch of the imagination. His record since his days at Bradford says everything. The fact that he left Wigan in a poor state, and Michael Maguire took the exact same squad and make them look like world beaters says even more.
So far the players linked to Salford is disgraceful. For the most part it is a list of has beens. Take a look at the players linked to Salford in recent weeks, the age of each player listed next to them.
Adrian Morley (36)
Francis Meli (34)
Tony Puletua (33)
Paul Wellens (33)
Timana Tahu (32)
Gareth Hock (29)
Neville Costigan (28)
Harrison Hansen (27)
Iosia Soliola (26)
Junior Sa’u (26)
Cory Paterson (25)
Elliott Whitehead (23)
Does that look like a list of players that you build a future around? Half of those player, if you are extremely generous, will be retired in two seasons time!
This is the same problem Richard Branson ran in to when he owned the London Broncos. You get rich owners with great intentions who have all their time, effort and money wasted by people that run their clubs into the ground.
Marwan Koukash is going to lose so much money if he allows Brian Noble to by the type of players listen above. If I was in his position I would be targeting the best young players in the game. Make the soon to be Salford Red Devils the club that young stars can go to and know they will get decent game time.
The very worst that happens that way is that the club starts turning out great youngsters that it can sell on to other Super League or NRL clubs. Its not like they have to worry about being at the bottom of the Super League ladder if they go down that road, they are there right now!
I don’t want to see Marwan Koukash lost to the game after a few years because he invested money into a bunch of pensioners at the request of a poor coach in Brian Noble. Noble has never shown the ability to build a team of his own. Even at Bradford he lived off the work that Brian Smith had done before, sorting out the clubs junior development system and putting in place a platform that the club lived off for many years.
You simply do not build a club by signing a bunch of players who are about to retire. Hopefully someone gets this message through to Marwan Koukash before he wastes his money moving from last place all the way up to 10th place on the Super League ladder.
This is the future: SalfordRedDevils.co.uk
only 1 older than craig gower
And…..
after making no impact in super league hes gone to save the knights under a legendary coach who doesnt seem to bother about age !!
BY THE WAY WIGAN WON WHAT UNDER MAGUIRE AND WASNT HE LIVING OFF DEVELOPMENT WORK CARRIED OUT BEFORE HE GOT THERE
Craig Gowers move to the Newcastle Knights is one of the most ridiculous, wasteful, stupid moves I have ever seen in my lifetime. He simply is not anywhere near up to playing first grade Rugby League in Australia. He wasn’t even up to Super League.
I’m not sure why that is relevant here considering I cover Gowers ridiculous move to the Knights last week.
As for Magures time at Wigan, he took an average team and in one off season turned them into the most dominant club in Super League. He won a Super League Grand Final at Wigan and went home.
Since he left, Wigan have won nothing and haven’t really looked like they were going to win anything either.
On top of that Maguire has taken a poor South Sydney Rabbitohs team and turned them into one of the best clubs in the NRL.
Once again, I’m not really sure why any of that is relevant in terms of what the Salford City Reds are doing….but hey, random gibber and anger seems to be you thing!