By STEVE MASCORD

WITH Salford lurching from one disaster to another and players already taking industrial action, one of the Red Devils’ stars is at the centre of the impending revival of the RLPA in Britain.

Having started the week owed their monthly wages, Devils players first refused to train and have now issued an edict stating they will not play against Castleford this weekend if they remain unpaid.

Utility back Ryan Brierley, also a player agent in women’s football/soccer, tells rugbyleaguehub.com Long Reads that a strong players’ union had been pencilled in to be established at the start of the season.

All-time great Adrian Morley is to be the representative of Rugby League Cares on the RLPA board and the pair says an announcement is imminent.

“It’s something I’ve wanted to push for a while and behind closed doors the players’ union is close to being done,” Brierley told our YouTube channel.

“There’s been a lot of work between (the players and) RL Cares to put that in place.

“Hopefully in a couple of months there’ll be news for you on that. There’s been a lot going on behind the scenes.

“Ideally it was going to be before the start of the season. It might have been pushed back a little bit.

“There’s definitely a need for that.”

The RLPA is so powerful in Australasia that it held the NRL to strict conditions on players’ promotional commitments in Las Vegas last week and is one of the key stakeholders in confirming the Ashes in Britain later this year.

It may also be one of the main reason no announcement was made on Sunday, as was widely anticipated.

We don’t even know if midweek tour games, a staple of tours going back to 1907, are even permissible under the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

“There has been a players’ association running for a couple of years but it’s never really took off, it’s never got to the level we wanted it to in terms of support from the players,” Morley said.

“So we’re trying to revamp that.

“I know the players’ association in Australia’s fantastic. We’re using that as our blueprint really, of how it should be running in the UK.

“So that’s part of my role. I’ll be the Rugby League Cares representative on the board of the players’ association.

“We’re going to get around to all the clubs, fly the flag and get the information out there of what we’re doing.

“We need the players to have more of a voice and more of a say in how the game’s governed.”

Image: SWpix