Salford Red Devils testing the loan market as Rowley outlines cost-cutting efforts but concedes no end in sight

Salford Red Devils head coach Paul Rowley has provided an update on the club’s financial situation whilst confirming the club is in the market for loans.

That news comes after Rowley revealed that the Red Devils will have just 15 players available for Saturday’s game against Wigan Warriors, with three of those players requiring pain-killing injections to take to the field.

As such, the club are desperate to bring in some players on loan alongside recent addition George Hill from Castleford Tigers, however, Rowley has spoken on the difficult nature of the loan market at the moment.

Asked if loans were an option, he responded: “Yeah, it’s a bit difficult though because there’s eight teams in the Challenge Cup quarter-finals so they don’t want their loan players for two weeks and have them restricted with the minimum loan period.

“That makes short-term loans difficult if they put themselves in a precarious position where they might need a back-up player, so to speak, but we’re certainly trying.”

One of the reasons why they were able to land Castleford loanee Hill is because the Tigers are out of the cup, with the deal also being made as part of the the Tigers signing Brad Singleton.

Salford Red Devils boss outlines club’s cost-cutting efforts as restrictions still hit hard

Singleton leaving the Red Devils allowed them to free up some cap space as Salford continue to try and save money and have their £1.2 million salary cap lifted.

Thus far, three senior players have left in Singleton, Marc Sneyd (Warrington Wolves) and Tim Lafai, with the latter taking to social media to confirm his return to Australia where he could seek a new club.

Despite trimming those players from their wage bill, restrictions still apply and club CEO Chris Irwin has stated that the club have been put back “probably six weeks”, meaning that there is no end in sight.

When asked about that, Rowley responded: “No, there’s not but as a club, I think we’ve been pretty forthcoming. Obviously, Sneydy, Singo and Tim Lafai are big hits to us.

“They’re big misses so I think we’ve been forthcoming in trying to make things happen and be cooperative and working alongside you know the restrictions to improve that.”

Staff and players will also be paid tomorrow, with Rowley adding: “We’ve been paid a couple of times so if you add those two contributing factors up, there’s a significant turnaround in funds there. We would hope that at some point (restrictions can be lifted) but I’m not sure how much more we can keep chipping away at that.”

Nene Macdonald “good to go” but salary cap restricting Salford

Realistically, given the fact they might only be able to field 15 players this weekend, chipping away from the squad might not be an option unless the Red Devils can bring in loanees whose parent club will pay wages.

Frustratingly for Salford is the fact that they currently have three fit players in Nene Macdonald, Sam Davis and Ben Hellewell who cannot play because they’re not registered under that £1.2 million salary cap.

Speaking on the immense challenges, Rowley stated: “It’s a 25-man squad. That is definitely a challenge. It’s hurting the players but we know the rules and it’s there for us to adhere to which we’ll keep trying to do.

“Nene’s obviously been training, he’s fit, he’s good to go. Sam’s been on a long-term injury so he’s obviously excited at the prospect of being able to play now and Ben Hellewell’s just been waiting in the wings really, a little bit like Nene. Yeah, it’s obviously frustrating but again, we can only do what we can do.”

There was some positivity from Rowley as he spoke on the fact his side had earned their first Super League win of the season, defeating Huddersfield 23-10 last Thursday.

On that, he said: “It was great to get the win, we live day by day and a good win is not going to reverberate into a particularly good week but we enjoyed that moment and that moment was really good.”

An important home victory for the Reds! 👹

🤝 @GordianBuilding & @hselec_ pic.twitter.com/IzOcn0iILS

— Salford Red Devils 👹 (@SalfordDevils) March 20, 2025