Salford coach Phil Veivers says injury will prevent Sean Long (picture) from re-launching his Super League career this weekend.
Long, now the Reds' assistant coach, was set to come out of retirement for Saturday's game against London Broncos at the Twickenham Stoop after half-back Marc Sneyd suffered an ankle injury in last Sunday's defeat at Hull.
But Veivers says the 35-year-old Long, who recently broke his thumb playing rugby union, aggravated the injury in training and is unlikely to play this season.
Sneyd, who got first chance to lay claim to the Reds' number seven jersey following Matty Smith's move to Wigan, has not yet been ruled out of Saturday's game and was today included in Veivers' 19-man squad.
"He's got soft-tissue damage," said Veivers. "There's no break. He's having intensive treatment and I'll probably leave it until the last minute."
Long, whose last Super League appearance was for Hull just over 12 months ago, was recently registered as a player in case of emergency but he was not named in Salford's initial squad for the trip to London.
"He's not in the 19 so he's not playing," Veivers insisted. "He broke his thumb playing rugby union and had an operation to fuse the joint.
"He had it scanned at the beginning of the week and it's not healed. He trained yesterday and injured it making a tackle. The likelihood is that he won't play this year."