NEW voices and ideas were in full flow at Park Lane on Tuesday night when Sedgley Park RUFC welcomed Salford City Reds; head coach Karl Harrison and his defensive coach, Scott Naylor, to take the week's first training session.

"A lot of the things they did we have done before, but they do them differently and more professionally, so they reinforced existing techniques and introduced new ones," said Tigers' player-coach Tim Fourie.

"All the boys have been talking about it, in particular the simple things Karl and Scott drilled into them, like keeping their defensive shape and everyone has bought into it.

"We worked solely on defence: one-on-ones for the big lads and fringe defence for the backs; sliding across as a unit and not stepping out of the channels, which will hopefully eliminate space for the opposition to exploit.

"League and union are different in many ways but as far as broken play is concerned they are exactly the same.

"Both Karl and Scott enjoyed it too, so we will try to make it as regular a thing as possible. I can't praise them enough, giving up their time for free to help us out.

"I will probably sit in on a couple of their sessions now and see what I can pick up."

After last Saturday's 23-12 defeat at home to Bedford Blues it also gave the Sedgley man a bit of a pick-me-up.

"It took me back a bit, it made me feel like a young man again, running around being shouted at.

"Plus Karl understands where I am coming from because he too has had to make the transition from player to coach and it is not easy, especially when you are still playing."

As for the game itself, he was again frustrated by the officiating.

"We have 80 minutes to make a difference, to get stuck in, but we never get the benefit of the doubt.

"Scott Naylor agreed, he said that at Salford they are not supposed to compete with the likes of Bradford and Wigan.

" Carlos Hassan threw out a pass that was border-line forward, but the ref blew up. They threw a pass that was a metre forward and they got the benefit of the doubt.

"The referee was then three metres away when Blair Feeney tackled that guy and waved played on. But the touch judge flagged and advised him to sinbin Blair for a late tackle.

"That meant we were 10 minutes without our stand-off, our kicker. We were behind and had two very kickable penalties while he was in the sin bin that could have got us at least a bonus point.

"Instead we ended up with nothing.

"At the beginning of the game their number four, Jon Phillips, gave away four penalties in a row and the referee said nothing. But then when we got into a scuffle he had words with the both of us, but said nothing about the penalties he had given away.

"You can hear it when officials talk to us, it's very condescending, it's as though we are supposed to lose and should be happy if we push a bigger club close.

"We train every week to win, not just to make up the numbers.

"Officials are going into games expecting us to get hammered, which is reflected in the way they control games."

There is no National One fixture this weekend, however, Sedgley will be taking a very strong team to Widnes on Sunday for their Lancashire Cup quarter-final game.

"All the first team reserves will be included and Jimmy Ponton may start, because Dan Hall has been asked to play form Sale Academy against England Under 18s on Sunday morning," said Fourie.

In the previous round Widnes beat Warrington 17-9 and have won the Lancashire Cup twice (1975-76 and 1990-91) and have also finished runners-up twice. The club currently lies 10th in North West Two.

Sedgley winger Rich Welding trained on Tuesday night despite a broken jaw, but is six weeks off being fully fit. Prop Gareth 'Tank' Roberts continues his comeback to fitness after knee surgery.