PAUL Rowley insisted he was not worrying about what the future holds as Salford Red Devils’ owners put in a rare public appearance at the Mend-A-Hose Jungle on Sunday.
Representatives of the consortium which were given approval to take over the Betfred Super League club in February were watching on as the Red Devils slumped to a 48-16 defeat away to Castleford Tigers, leaving them bottom of the table after 11 rounds.
The loss came at the end of a week which saw the club issued with a winding-up petition from HMRC and Salford City Council pull out of negotiations over the sale of Salford Community Stadium, but head coach Rowley was trying to focus solely on on-field matters.
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“I’m day to day, I keep the faith and I just stay positive all the time,” Rowley told Sky Sports.
“With the regards to everything else, whatever happened yesterday or tomorrow I don’t concern myself with.
“I concern myself with today, otherwise my head would have fallen off a long time ago.
“I’ve got to stand in front of those players now in review and it’s important I’m positive, and I find a motivation for them and myself as well.”
One small positive for Rowley was the return of Nene Macdonald, who was making his first Salford appearance since March 7 after a short spell on loan at Betfred Championship side Oldham followed by returning to Australia for family reasons while the Red Devils continue to operate under a £1.2million sustainability cap.
The departures of other members of the Salford squad, two of whom in Chris Atkin and Brad Singleton featured for Castleford on Sunday, opened the door for the three-quarter to return.
Macdonald gave a glimpse of what Salford had been missing with two tries in the defeat, along with making four tackle busts, two clean breaks and averaging 10 metres per carry, and Rowley was pleased to have the Papua New Guinea international available again.
“He’s not match-fit by any means, but you can see he’s a bit of a one-off,” Rowley said.
“He makes things happen, he’s a huge athlete and his ability is second to none.
“It’s certainly great to have Nene back and he does create opportunuties for us.
“If he’s not scoring, he’s setting them up and it would be nice if we could build and start playing off the back of Nene, and get some results as well.”
