www.therfl.co.uk/news/article/31 ... ve-charged Should be interesting - for what it's worth, I think his comments were justified and have been proven somewhat correct.

www.therfl.co.uk/news/article/31 ... ve-charged Should be interesting - for what it's worth, I think his comments were justified and have been proven somewhat correct.

Yes if you compare it to what Hudgell said earlier in the year when charged, who basically called them clueless and we should get rid, all Hetherington did was ask questions about the process and timeline......ones the RFL should be able to answer easily if they have the answers.

Glad to see the RFL have got their priorities right and can't see they have more important things to concentrate on....

I thought what he said was pretty inflammatory. Not sure it needed to be said in public and I don't think it helped Hardaker particularly.

Not everything needs to be said out loud, right or wrong.

Be interesting to see if the 'discussions' remain behind closed doors

It's been mentioned before GH will have run his statement by the clubs legal advisors before it was released.I think The RFL are just going through the motions to try hide the fact that they really are not up to the job

Pretty dumb of the RFL to reopen this. Presumably GH's defence is going to involve an investigation of their processes and that's not likely to be pretty.

How many of us question the integrity of the RFL?
They make it easy for us to do so.

Some will remember Will Carling once got into trouble for calling the RFU a bunch of Old Farts. I'd say they were a pretty efficient organistion compared to those that run Rugby League presently!

I think they have just seized on an opportunity to hit the club when it is down and feeling a little sorry for itself.
Maybe returning a few aces which he delivered in previous years.

I don't have a problem with the clubs statement other than the use of the term witch hunt. I thought at the time it might get the club in bother. I think it could've been worded in order to avoid this. Not that it's a big issue for Leeds or Hetherington.

But then the incident has shown how amateurishly the RFL is run. It seems in almost every aspect be it the executive, the refs department, coaching, marketing even the website is rubbish.
To be honest I think the new structure needed to make much more money available for the running of the RFL.

As said above, the RFL needed to just slink away from this and hope everyone forgets about it. It'll depend if Hetherington is up for a fight, if he is the RFL might regret this.

Its a witch hunt.

He's accused the RFL of trumping up a charge to try and get Hardaker. They didn't. They responded to a report - albeit filed at the wrong time - by one of their match officials.

I'm surprised it's taken them this long to get around to charging GH, if I'm honest.

Given the nature of the charge, there won't be any cans of worms opened on the RFL's processes as their validity or otherwise isn't on trial. Hetherington's comments are.

Thought he was right at the time. Don't think it did hardaker any harm. Publicly standing by his player and I have a feeling the RFL would have looked to charge hardaker had not all the descrepancy in the reports been brought to public.

Anyone with half a brain knows that it was a witch hunt - so that rules out most of the Red Hall Staff!!

For a professional sport our game is run in a most amateurish way. Whoever instigated the case against Zak and Gary H for that matter needs to be named and shamed.

If the RFL were run half as efficiently as Leeds then it would be far better organised and maybe fans would have confidence in it

Keep up the good work Gary

Right or wrong there was plenty of opportunity to make those points in private. When you publicly criticise administrators like that you almost force them to proceed or drag something out so they are not seen to be buckling under pressure. The length of time that the "investigation" took seemed rediculously long to pretty much everyone. Far longer than needed to gather the facts and decide if Zak should be charged. Was that possibly because the people who "run" RL couldn't be seen to be jumping to the complaints of a club executive?
In that scenario GH did Zak no favours at all. But not really the crime of the century in any case.

Go get em GH!

G H may also be doing a bit of bridge building with Hardaker with a view to persuade him to sign a new deal.Hardaker broke off negotiations last year I hear

FIGHT... FIGHT... FIGHT...

Lets say what GH said was true. Surely that needs to be out in the open. Surely the club cannot be complicit in hiding those actions? Surely, if what he said was true, there is a duty to Hardaker and to the game to make sure that people are aware the RFL are behaving like this?

The RFL publicly accused a player of making a homophobic comment, left him hanging there for weeks, and then decided well there isnt actually any evidence for it. That isnt good enough, the RFL have failed there already (and you would think they would avoid drawing attention to that fact but this is Nigel Woods RFL we are talking about) if the Ref did subsequently change his match report, that needs investigating, if the RFL did not pursue this case with the same vigour and tools they pursue others that also needs investigating.

I think people trivialise a little bit what GH said because it was prefaced with such a confrontational term as 'witch hunt', but i dont think it is a small thing at all that the Chief Exec of one of the leading clubs legitimately feels, and has at least some evidence that, a referee changed a match report to include an offence he originally stated he hadnt seen. That really is a huge accusation and not one that should either be made or taken lightly.

I also think it makes the RFL, who publicly accused a player of homophobia with no evidence, look a bit hypocritical to then charge a CE for making an accusation at them. If it was ok for the RFL to tacitly make an accusation, then its ok for GH to tacitly make one against them.

Bang on Smokey!
lionarmour -Im sure GH has "re-built" said Bridges!

El Presidente must be slipping.

He's guilty. I hope he knows he's guilty and accepts that what he did was wrong. Just as players shouldn't run their mouths about refs that applies tenfold towards GH.

My money is on some people at The RFL not fancying getting embroiled in the storm heading their way regarding Keighley. "Oh can you take that? I'm just dealing with this!"



I bet Silverwood is pleased!

I thought Hetherington ran the RFL?

Why would he charge himself?

Only realistic answer to that is that Kath must have ordered him to.