Salford Red Devils’ crisis has dipped even worse than what many expected with several senior players leaving, causing an impending disaster.
It can be argued that the exits, namely Chris Hill, Chris Hankinson, Jack Ormondroyd, and Ryan Brierley, have ensured the club can exist for another week.
That was something that the Red Devils’ captain Brierley noted in his heartfelt message to the fans, explaining: “I find peace in the fact that the club will benefit, even if it is just for the short term.”
No-one knows quite how short that short-term could be but it seems that Salford have scrambled together a squad for Sunday’s game against Hull FC with a whopping six loan additions announced on Friday.
At the time of writing no official squad has been named on social media by the Red Devils, but the RFL’s website has seen Salford name 18 players with nine of those being loanees. That’s a result of the RFL increasing the number of loan players a club can field, simply to help Salford complete the season.
Salford Red Devils’ squad stats that highlight the lack of welfare in Super League
Opportunities for young players should certainly be celebrated but opportunities in this fashion, and the way in which Salford’s young talents have had them all year, is a walking welfare disaster and Sunday could be the worst example yet.
Of course, there was the 82-0 loss to St Helens in Round One when Salford named just 16 players due to the salary cap restrictions, in what was effectively a bid to force the RFL to approve their ownership, something that has since come back to bite the club and the RFL.
However, it could be argued that was just an extension of St Helens’ pre-season, whereas this game comes against a play-off-hungry Hull FC, taking on a team half comprised of players that have been battered and bruised and mistreated all year, and half comprised of complete strangers.
Assessing just how inexperienced this Salford Red Devils side is proved difficult initially with the official Super League website not having player profiles for a number of the 18-man squad, meaning all data is taken from Rugby League Project.
That data makes for horrific reading with the entire 18-man squad boasting just 263 Super League appearances, a figure which several Hull FC players can beat themselves including Tom Briscoe (371) and Zak Hardaker (317).
A total of 263 Super League appearances equates to an average of just shy of 15 per player, however, French pair Tiaki Chan and Justin Sangare account for 132 of those 263 games, just over 50%.
Without them, the average of the remaining 16 players dips to just over eight Super League appearances with only Loghan Lewis (14), Tom Whitehead (15), Nathan Connell (18), Riley Lumb (19), and Harvey Wilson (21) having more than a dozen games under their belt.
Three of the squad have yet to play a Super League game and four others have less than five games to their name, highlighting the issues the Red Devils have.
The issue being though, it’s not just the Red Devils’ issue. This is a failing by the RFL and it’s an example of the sport failing those young players, many of whom had never played a senior game before this season.
Whatever the result on Sunday, rugby league fans need to just hope that there is not a serious injury or another reason to drag the sport even further through the mud.
Salford Red Devils’ 18-man squad to face Hull FC
Number in brackets represents the number of Super League games a player has played.
Tiaki Chan – 53
Nathan Connell – 18
Jake Davies – 0
Charlie Glover – 7
Samuel Hill – 4
Taylor Kerr – 0
Loghan Lewis – 14
Ben Littlewood – 1
Riley Lumb – 19
Harvey Makin – 12
Declan Murphy – 3
Ciaran Nolan – 0
Jamie Pye – 3
Justin Sangare – 79
Toby Warren – 10
Thomas Whitehead – 15
Harvey Wilson – 21
Finley Yates – 4
