Salford Cap Successful Week With Rout of Leigh

Salford started the countdown to a brighter future back in the Super League by emphasising the gulf in class that already separates them from Leigh. There was a party atmosphere after the City Reds were this week awarded one of the 14 licences that guarantee Super League membership for the next three seasons and the players did their bit against plucky but limited opposition, with their focus intensified by the knowledge that the club have already launched an extensive recruitment drive to step up competition for places.

Ray Cashmere, an Australian prop currently playing for the North Queensland Cowboys, is the only name that has so far been confirmed but Paul Sculthorpe, the former Great Britain captain who is in the last year of his contract with St Helens, is thought to be the high-profile signing that Salford really want to confirm their status as serious players at the top level.

The success of Salford's licence application had been completely overshadowed by the controversy caused by the promotion of Wales's Celtic Crusaders ahead of heartland clubs such as Widnes and Leigh. They finally received some publicity yesterday but not the sort their long-serving chairman John Wilkinson would have wanted, as it emerged that Red City Developments, the company formed to deliver the new stadium that was the key to their bid, had gone into administration.

However both Salford and Peel Holdings, the property developers whose previous projects include the Trafford Centre and who are the majority shareholders in Red City, insisted that this was no more than a "technical issue", and that the stadium will still be ready in early 2010 - with Rugby Football League sources confirming that they had been kept in the loop and were not overly concerned about one of the 14 licence-holders failing even to make it to next season's starting line.

Leigh's players showed admirable spirit considering the blow to their own Super League dreams and trailed only 16-8 after 50 minutes, with Ian Mort and Dave Alstead touching down in response to Salford tries from Matt Gardner, Malcolm Alker and Paul White. But the slickest combination of the match between Alker and Karl Fitzpatrick sent Richie Myler over for the score that broke their resistance, and four more tries followed as Leigh's morale and energy drained away.

Salford City Reds Fitzpatrick; Gardner, Wilshere, Littler, White; Ratchford, Myler; Nash, Alker, Stapleton, Bannister, Adamson, Turner. Interchange Highton, Sidlow, Sibbit, Leuluai.

Leigh Mort; Alstead, Kohe-Love, Stewart, Maden; Marsh, Watson; Morrison, McConnell, Doran, Higson, Taylor, Smith. Interchange Roberts, Rudd, Hill, Cookson.

Referee R Laughton (Barnsley).