Okey Dokey

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jan/19/rugby-league-bradford-greg-bird-leedsHappy to oblige[/url

[url=http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/rugby-league-headlines/Leeds-Rhinos-Chief-raps-Bulls.4891017.jpAnd again[/url - this one also draws attention to how Leeds stuck behind Walker and Bailey when they were jailed. "Our players are role models".

The reader is obviously left to draw any conclusions of their own regarding breathtaking hypocrisy.

i think lord percy has explained the differences in his posts above

only if they show a breathtaking ability to deliberately misread

"Our players are role models."

Then Lower down


"Rhinos stuck by two of their players, Chev Walker and Ryan Bailey, when they were jailed in 2003."

Role models?

did the crime paid with time!! rehabilitated and neither has reoffended

yes i would say role models!! and an example that actions have consequences and after making a mistake you can pay for it and learn from it.

You mean in the one where
he referred to signing players banned from the NRL? When of course Bird was nothing of the sort and that was clear at the time?

Its pretty hard to see how allowing two players convicted and sent down for violent offences to play in SL was OK, whereas preventing a player who (at the time) was only charged with a violent offence and claimed innocence was not?

The only other factor having any bearing was that the former players were British and the latter player was from overseas.

So Hetherington cannot have had an issue with the first point - allowing players charged with or actually convicted of violent offences to play in SL. His own actions with his own players demonstrated that.

Which means the only other issue he can have had an issue with was allowing overseas players to play in SL. But he cannot have had an issue with that either, else he would not have signed Buderus and Eastwood.

Indeed, he cannot have had an issue with it being a "banned" player, because even if he was "unclear" of Bird's status at the time, once it was made clear to him that the player was not "banned" he did not issue a retraction, clarification or apology.

So what exactly DID he have an issue with that made the two situations different, given that if anything the situation regarding his own players was more serious?

The obvious factor remaining remaining was that the player in question had signed for any club not his own? But it can't even have been that, because he did not go apoplectic over said player's subsequent signing for Catalans.

So where does that leave us? The only remaining logical deduction was that it was because Bird had signed for BRADFORD. That, in turn, would lead one to deduce that his public vitriol was aimed primarily at discrediting Bradford, and maybe at trying to influence through the media the officials who were considering his visa application at the time? Simply because any other conclusion would indicate gross hypocrisy and, as we all know, Hetherington is an honourable man. Yet Hetherington would not do that? Would he...?

So there you have it. All as extensively debated at the time. Further debate is academic. As always, people will have formed their own views as to motives. I certainly have!

If you read the statement's from the NRL before bird negotiated his "release" deal with cronulla you'll find they were going to ban him indefinately until this case was sorted.
The fact that he actually signed an agreement not to seek another NRL club was enough for cronulla to ask the NRL not enforce this ban.
The top and bottom of it is that the board at cronulla had to be seen to be making a stand but didn't want to totally alienate bird as ricky stuart openly stated he wanted him back next year and the NRL agreed.
Hetherington's point is very straight forward he wasn't allowed to play in the NRL so he shouldn't of been allowed to use the SL as a get out,which in the end the UK Border agency declined his visa.
The lads at leeds served their time and this was adjuged by leeds to be ample punishment and is a completely different scenario when read as it's supposed to be.

1. So he was not banned from the NRL, and Hetherington did not retract or clarify that. Indeed, as you confirm, everyone seemed happy to have him back in the NRL next year.
2. Hetherington did not make the same vitriolic response when Les Cats signed him. Indeed, one would have expected Hetherington to have been even MORE vitriolic given that the French authorities were far more accommodating than the British.
3. The question of whether the Leeds lads had been amply punished is irrelevant; he was not even prepared to allow Bird the opportunity to play until his innocence or guilt had been established, yet he had no such reservations with his own players.

I have just debunked those objections; have you others to offer?

Bebunk away

he wasn't allowed to play in the NRL FACT!!!!
He clearly stated the case 1st time around when you lot tried to sign him why repeat it?????
Again the leeds case is irrelevant mate the whole point was the SL allowing player's to come here who were "prevented" from playing in their own comp's i.e The NRL.
P.s





Back at yer!!

Due to the terms of being released from his Cronulla contract.

Without which he would of been banned by the NRL!!
simple's!!

Nice ...



Anyway, my logic is irrefutable and you know it!



But its academic anyway now - I doubt many outside of Leeds will believe that Hetherington would have had his apoplectic fit had it been say Cats or Quins or Celtic who had signed him, and I doubt many IN Leeds will admit to secretly sharing that view, so a war of attrition serves no useful purpose. Always good value poking the anthill from time to time though, wouldn't you say? I learned everything I know about that from observing the...masters, at play on here!

Oh, and

I think the fact that it was hetherington who spoke out and who was supposed to be signing him made it more interesting anyway!!

i think he congratulated them on signing an australian international!

I can sympathise with GH's sentiment but his statement was clumsily worded and, in reality, shouldn't have been made.

Adey, given what has transpired since do you still agree with Hood that the "signing" of Bird was a "triumph"?

"still"? Not sure I ever put my name to that description of it?

Its becoming too hypothetical now, that's the trouble.

IF he had received his Visa, IF he had already turned round our fortunes early doors, IF it transpires he wins his appeal and/or escapes a custodial sentence and is free to leave Oz (is that speculation [isub judice[/i?) so he was able to continue playing good footy with little interruption, then its quite probable most of the fans might well agree it was. After all, in a not-that-dissimilar situation with Leon Pryce, most Saints fans would regard his signing from Bradford as still being a "triumph", I'd suggest?

If.

Conversely, had he joined, played crap, and it transpires he is not allowed to leave Oz or maybe gets sent down, then most fans would no doubt see it as a bloody great bollox-up, I'd suggest?

But we were never able to go through with the signing, so the question is pretty academic now anyway, sadly.

Apologies, my wording was almost as clumsy as Hetheringtons.

Ay, you've been trying to coherse me again...

Saw the title and thought this was a thread about Kath