Hard-up Halifax ask fans for £100,000

Halifax have issued an appeal to their supporters for the money to see them through the rest of the Super League season.

The club, whose financial crises in the past included entering a Creditors Voluntary Agreement and a stringent cost-cutting exercise in 1998, has circulated its season-ticket holders, telling them that it needs £100,000 to get through the next few weeks. The club's spokes-man, Richard Hizzard, said that the Blue Sox are not in any immediate danger of folding.

"It's a hard-hitting message, because it's meant to be, but our coach, Steve Linnane, has met the players and reassured them that is is not a situation where they might feel the need to jump ship at the moment," he said.

Halifax have no major sponsor and probably the lowest revenue in Super League. They have also been badly hit by delays in planning permission for a supermarket on the site of their former ground at Thrum Hall, which in turn have delayed the money they have been expecting from the sale. Work on rebuilding The Shay, the ground they now share with Halifax Town Football Club, has stopped.

"It is not so much a crisis, more a need to ensure the future stability of the club," said Hizzard, who insisted that the club will complete the season, even if its appeal to its supporters fall on deaf ears.

Steve McCormack, the youngest coach in Super League, is to be given a chance to prove that he is the man Salford need as a permanent successor to John Harvey.

Harvey resigned at the weekend after a 70-4 thrashing at Wigan that was Salford's third heavy defeat in a row. The 29-year-old McCormack has been an assistant with the Reds for six years and their chief executive, David Tarry, said that they had confidence in him.

"We need someone who is capable of getting good results with the resources available to them and we believe Steve can do that for us," he said.

Warrington, whose coach, Darryl Van de Velde, is leaving at the end of the season, could announce his successor this week.

Hull have denied signing the Warrington centre, Toa Kohe-Love, for next season. The Maori World Cup player is out of contract at the end of the year and has family on Humberside, but the Hull chief executive, Shane Richardson, says that there have been no negotiations. Bradford and St Helens have been linked with the player in the past.

Castleford are being linked in Australia with St George-Illawarra's former World Cup hooker, Wayne Bartim, who is said to be ready to join them next year.

David Nelson, who played for Sheffield Eagles in the early days of the club, has been shot dead in Leeds.