Wakefield Trinity coach offers Salford Red Devils sympathies as personal experiences drawn upon

Wakefield Trinity boss Daryl Powell has shared his sympathy for those connected to Salford amid the Red Devils’ ongoing financial plight, comparing their situation to the one he found himself in at Keighley Cougars many moons ago.

As has been well documented, things haven’t been on an even keel at Salford since before pre-season had even begun ahead of the 2025 campaign.

So far this year, the Red Devils have spent just one week of the season without being under an RFL-imposed Sustainability Cap – with wages paid late two months in a row earlier in 2025.

Numerous players have had to leave the club to help raise much-needed funds, and what’s been left is a paper-thin squad for head coach Paul Rowley to pick from.

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Wakefield Trinity coach offers Salford Red Devils sympathies as personal experiences drawn upon

Salford travel to Belle Vue to take on Wakefield for the first time since Trinity’s return to Super League on Sunday afternoon, with Rowley’s side searching for just a second win of the year.

With the Red Devils rock bottom of the Super League ladder, Powell offered his sympathies in his pre-match press conference earlier this week.

He said: “Nobody wants to see a club being under so much pressure, and then for individual players, it’s really difficult because it’s your living. That’s really hard.

“I went through it myself a little bit at Keighley, it’s a fair few years ago now. I ended up going to Leeds.

“Sometimes things change quickly and there’s a bit of a silver lining there, but there’ll be a fair bit of angst among a few of the boys there (at Salford) now, which is never good to see.”

Powell took over as player-coach at Keighley back in April 1995. He walked in to a club that was desperate to get into Super League that had seen a £3 million investment promised but never delivered.

Appointed after previous coach Phil Larder resigned having not been paid, Powell – and plenty of his team-mates – would ultimately be sold on to Leeds Rhinos, with the Cougars placed into administration.

Carl Metcalfe, the man at the heart of the scandal, was eventually arrested and convicted for the supplying of fake and illegal drugs.

The veteran coach continued: “We all feel for individual players and the club itself, and I hope there’s a positive outcome.

“They’ve lost a lot of high quality players, but I watched them playing last week and I thought they played really well with the ball.

“They’ve still got some high quality players in there that can cause you a lot of trouble. We’ve got to look after what we’re doing.”

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