Betfred Super League 2025: Salford out to confound expectations again in 2025

Salford Red Devils are looking to put aside all the talk of financial trouble over the off-season as they again bid to enter the play-off picture in the 2025 Betfred Super League campaign.

Paul Rowley’s side massively outperformed many a neutral’s pre-season assumption in 2024, finishing fourth in the table despite having far lesser resources than most of their opponents.

And while much of the build-up to the new season has been beset by uncertainty over an ongoing takeover bid, club captain Kallum Watkins insists that it comes with the territory of being a Salford player.

“There’s been a lot of talk over the last few months, but it’s the kind of thing we have come to expect over the last few years while I’ve been at Salford,” the former England centre tells Betfred.

“For us it’s just about cracking on with pre-season, making sure that we’re training hard and doing what we need to do to prepare for a big season. It’s just trying to keep away from the noise, I guess, and move on from that.”

Star full-back Ryan Brierley agrees that the players have already proved that they have the focus needed to drive the Red Devils to on-field success whatever the background noise.

“The belief has always been there since day one when I joined three or four years ago,” says Brierley. “There’s a lot of turmoil and bumps in the road when you play for Salford, but ultimately the credit goes to the playing group and the coaching staff who manage to keep us competitive each year.

“I suppose when we do well, it’s never really a surprise to us. It’s always a surprise to everyone else, but we’ll always back our ability.”

“Hopefully this season with Jayden Nikorima there, and Marc Sneyd and myself there’s more of a settled spine, with Joe Mellor who’s been a bit of a makeshift hooker, our systems and structures and fluency will be a bit better coming into the season.”

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Nikorima was a key mid-season addition to the halves in 2024 after leaving Catalans Dragons, and he explains to Betfred how he’s thriving in an environment which should help to put the mockers on pre-season expectations once more.

“It’s every kid’s dream. When I was a nine-year-old all I wanted to do was attack, and that’s what Salford do. They like putting teams on the back foot with their attack, so it’s exciting. Not just that, but their crowd’s unbelievable, their fans are crazy,” says the 28-year-old.

“We’ve definitely got our goals set for what we want to do in this 2025 season, and it’s more than what we achieved last year. We always have that underdog tag, or get put in the bottom half of the ladder by the experts, but we see ourselves better than that.”

The Red Devils were thrilling 40-12 victors over St Helens in Morgan Knowles’ Testimonial on Saturday, and they are back at the Totally Wicked Stadium for their first fixture of the Super League season on Saturday, February 15.

They are 3/1 to claim a top-six spot in 2025 before Rowley transitions to a Director of Rugby role ahead of the ’26 season, with his number two Kurt Haggerty taking the main coaching role.

Marc Sneyd is 25/1 to be named the Steve Prescott MBE Man of Steel at the season’s end, while you can get 22/1 for Salford to win the Challenge Cup final at Wembley in June.

They begin their cup campaign on Sunday, February 9 with a trip to League 1 side Midlands Hurricanes.

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