Pundit slams Salford Red Devils for ‘trying to embarrass the game’ in round one

Sky Sports pundit Jon Wilkin has accused Salford Red Devils of trying to embarrass the game last weekend.

With their proposed takeover pending RFL approval, the Red Devils are operating under a sustainability cap of £1.2 million while they wait for the green light. As such, they have been unable to name their first choice line up so far this year with head coach Paul Rowley being restricted in his selection.

He named a side with £1.2m worth of talent for the club’s Challenge Cup clash with Midlands Hurricanes, with Ryan Brierley, Nene Macdonald, Jayden Nikorima and Brad Singleton amongst the players involved as they secured cup progression. However, for the opening round of the new Super League season, Rowley looked to his reserves and academy, naming just three senior players in his squad.

As such, the Red Devils were handed a record breaking 82-0 defeat by St Helens and the club has come under huge amounts of criticism since. They’re also the subject of a compliance investigation from the RFL with the governing body looking into whether they brought the sport into disrepute.

Wilkin has become the latest to have his say with the pundit taking aim at Salford Red Devils for their actions.

“Every Super League club has a requirement from wealthy ownership to bail them out of cash flow positions,” Wilkin said on Sky Sports News. “Twelve months ago, I said there was alarm bells at Salford because they didn’t have that.

“They didn’t have the ability to get through tough cash flow situations with a wealthy backer and it’s really come home to roost. They took it to the eve of the season and I’ll say it again, what they tried to do is embarrass the game by fielding such a weak team and I think it was irresponsible to do so.

“I thought they put young players in who are not physically or athletically developed against serious professional athletes in round one and I thought it was a bad look for the sport, a bad look for Paul Rowley, and a bad look for the game.

“It’s accepted in the game that you rest players like before big games. I’ve never known it acceptable in our sport for that to happen in round one, and not when the week before Paul had fielded a team that was £1.2million worth of value on the pitch. He’d already done it the week before, he could have done it again and he chose not to and the reason might be that he’s trying to protect his more senior players.

“Salford cannot afford the squad they’ve got. To caveat that, some investment’s come in, it’s from overseas, those people are being vetted and because it’s overseas investment, that takes time. It’s not like going on Companies House and seeing Joe Bloggs has 25 years of accounts and see how much money he’s got in the bank.

“As it stands, that money or investment, there is no basis to whether that’s valid or not. So I applaud for the RFL for being strong and solid and consistent and really deplore Salford’s behaviour. I think they’ll reflect on this and Paul Rowley, who is a man of real decency, will reflect on this and regret it.”