Who is going to step in and save Salford’s players from a welfare massacre?

There will have been a breaking point for everyone with Salford Red Devils across this season – for their own supporters, it would have likely come much earlier than the rest of us – and if it hadn’t arrived already, it surely came on Thursday evening.

It wasn’t necessarily the manner of their latest heavy defeat. Hull KR are a side that could do that to anyone on their day. It was more the sight of Paul Rowley, visibly emotionally drained and left with nowhere to turn but to repeat the same things post-match, time and time again.

“I’m not sure what my emotions are,” he said. “I’m bored of it, I’m sick of it.”

Rowley would then later point out several of his players made themselves unavailable pointing to “injuries or illness, whichever way you want to look at it whether that be mental, physical or whatever”. You did not need to read too deeply between the lines.

Rowley is a good man. Better than that, in fact. He has held himself in the highest regard throughout this quite frankly ludicrous crisis that is now running into month number.. well, goodness knows how many, really.

History will remember him the right way, as it should. He is clearly an exceptional coach but an even better leader and human being. But in simple terms, it has gone on for long enough.

Only Salford’s ownership group can provide the answers to when this saga will end. When the bridging loan will materialise. Why they were telling members of the media on Thursday they were adamant they will be one of the 14 teams in Super League next year. And had this just been about a business, it would have been worrying enough.

But there is a human side, a live and serious welfare aspect, to this situation which now needs stopping. Salford’s young players are acquitting themselves magnificently but their coach could not even hide the reality of the situation on Thursday.

“A lot of players shouldn’t be on this platform,” he said. “They’re being exposed to things they shouldn’t be.”

Once or twice a year would be fine. But the game is now asking players who are visibly not ready to play in Super League to do it week in, week out. At best, the experience could end up being bruising. At worst, it could expose young, undeveloped players to a level of physicality they can’t compete at.

And don’t forget, anyone who is important will tell you rugby league prioritises player welfare more than most, right? The salary cap constraints were designed to be temporary; not to last 20 rounds of a gruelling season. Everyone seems to have forgotten that they’re still in place.

So it’s now time for someone to step in. But the worry for the game is: who is that? A strong, thriving players union would intervene in any other given world where the league’s initials start with N, and end in RL.

But what was left of the union in the UK had its funding pulled and its lead representative left without a job. Salford’s players have been desperate for support for months, and they have had nothing except an arbitrary meeting that they basically had to go to extreme lengths just to try and secure.

The Rugby Football League should likely intervene and this point too but the situation has gone so deep and so many senior players have left, there’s only a paper thin squad that may likely get even smaller in the coming days and weeks.

So really, the onus falls on the Red Devils’ owners. They have to come clean at this point, front up and explain what is happening. Where is the bridging loan? What is happening at the end of this season? Will people still have jobs? And why are their young players being forced to do this?

If they won’t do that, the governing body has to accelerate this process to a conclusion.

Because if this carries on, blowout scores will be the least of rugby league’s concerns.

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