New Salford RLFC owner Mason Caton-Brown expects to be able to have a head coach secured and in place over the coming days.
Salford had their place in the 2026 Championship confirmed on Monday with the consortium led by ex Salford Red Devils winger Caton-Brown being selected by RFL over bids from Tracy Atiga and Chris Irwin. As such, with just over three weeks to go before the new season gets underway, the hard work starts now for the Salford club.
Plenty is still to be confirmed, of course, with the consortium set to have a busy few weeks to ensure the club is in a position to start the season. But, a stadium agreement can now be signed off, as well as a kit supplier, sponsorship agreement and various other deals.
However, something that comes as a priority to Caton-Brown is getting a head coach in position and with an agreement in place, that’s something that can be nailed down and announced over the festive period.
“The first job is the conversations we’ve had with players, coaches and partners,” Caton-Brown told Serious About Rugby League. “It’s just trying to get that pen to paper and we’ll be making announcements between Christmas and New Year about things like that.
“It’s just building and with all the things that we had in place, it’s just making them concrete.”
On a head coach specifically, he added: “It’s really close. We’ve been speaking with the coach and now we can put pen to paper and start building the club, building the team, building the playing staff and also the management staff. It’s exciting times.
“He’s an enthusiastic coach, I can tell you that for sure. He’s been helping in the background and now we can make it official.”
Salford RLFC recruitment update
Once a coach is secured, the attention will turn to signing up a squad and it’s fair to assume that Caton-Brown’s phone will hardly stop ringing over the coming days and weeks with agents and players making contact.
Loans from Super League and Championship clubs might prove to be helpful when it comes to bringing in fit players quickly, while there are a number of free agents who are are still unattached after being released at the end of the 2025 campaign.
“We’ve had people reaching out and we’ve already outlined a few players we’re looking to pen to paper on in the next few days,” he added. “We’re making some announcements between Christmas and New Year.
“We’re quite confident we’ll have a full squad come January 16 to run out.
“We’re speaking to everyone, we’re speaking to players, we’re speaking to Super League clubs, we’re really confident that we’ll have that squad.
“In terms of time it’s really quite tight, but we’ll have some training sessions leading into that game but we understand it’s a challenging time for the club and the players and that’s just one hurdle we’re going to have to overcome this year which we’re happy to do.
“We were always going to have to overcome some hurdles in this period so we’ll keep fighting as a club and as a team we’ll keep doing that.”
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