Only that Austin preferred to stay at leeds and hoped they would offer him a contract based on his willingness at the time to pledge his future to the Rhinos.
Due to us not being able to make a decision on his future he has childishly asked for a move.
If we wanted him to stay we could have refused his request as I`m sure Smith would have wanted.
Hetherington on the other hand thought he could save a few quid and agreed to him moving.
Most of us on here thought we would need to find at least 1 halfback possibly 2.
I`m sure GH thought the same and should by now have at least 1 half lined up and the other on the radar.

as I said leeds can no wrong in some people's eyes

It was reported we offered him a one year deal but he wanted two - don’t know if that’s true or not.

This is the Blake Austin that said he was happy with one year desls.

A completely normal transfer at a completely normally run club. Nothing to see here.

The club has got plenty wrong in the last few years, This Austin situation isn’t one of those IMO

Not sure why it has to be so binary.

I am out of the country so I was surprised at the move. However. Rhinos didn’t want him or they would have offered him a contract. I just hope we can use the next 8 games to develop sinfield. I don’t particularly want to see another big name signing at the expense of academy player development

Even if they didn’t want him Austin I think people are forgetting this isn’t a move to a club with a contract for next year and beyond, Austin has asked to be released to go play for Cas for 6 games.

If he’d have gone for a long term contract somewhere else but gone early I wouldn’t have much of an issue with Austin

Everything is awsome

It's binary because a team of misfits who every one laughed at are oceans better than us and this last debacle makes us a laughing stock Austin isn't even a problem hes garbage but the relationship between RS and GH is one or both need the bullet.

I’ve really not got a clue what you are on about. But maybe calm down a bit?

I think this is going to be one of those he said they said stories that only Austin and Hetherington know the truth.
Austin saying he was never offered a deal Hetherington saying he was offered 1 year.
He`s gone now which is a shame at this stage of the season.
But let`s hope Sinfield can show us we won`t miss him.

Regardless of the one year deal thing Austin has asked to be released to go to cas for 7 games, that to me doesn’t scream of a a player we should be offering a deal to.

Said I wasn’t impressed with the signing in the first place, nothing that has happened in the 18 or so months since has changed my mind. He’s always been a rocks and diamonds type, just not what we need or needed.

The signing was and is typical of a lower cost option, someone who didn’t have that many other good options at the time, and represents pretty much everything that was and remains wrong with our recruitment strategy.

Agree Batley

Couldn’t agree more!

They're a "human resource" like the rest of us. This isn't football.

Trying to buy a team has never worked. Recruitment should be about developing our own academy players.

To my mind the academy coach is just as important as the first team coach. If we don’t focus on our academy players we lose them to other clubs who will give them regular first team rugby

You'll only ever get 1-3 who will progress from each cohort though so your recruitment has to be everybit as good maximising those spaces available and providing experience. We've got both wrong for too long and now there's a greater emphasis on the integration of the younger players, which is great to see, we still cant seem to get the other side of the equation right.

Last sacked at Cas. Powell incoming?

From Austins side of things, that gives me a little smirk.

Austins gone from saying to NRL clubs to come and get him, to signing for cas and supposedly signing for Featherstone within a month.

It’s not been the best month has it.

A race to the bottom for all parties concerned.

Austin after last night’s cas game might have realised he may have been better staying at Leeds. On the plus side looking at George Williams display for Warrington last night Austin looks the better of the two. The advantage of Austin he is considerably cheaper.

Cas' recent results might have been more about players wanting the coach out though. Yet again a case of a caretaker having a couple of OK results and getting a long term gig. It really doesn't often end well, as with Agar for us.

TBF Agar got the job done when other bigger, more illustrious names made a complete pigs ear of recruitment / retention and training.
His problem was he was never the long term solution and should never have been offered the job long term.He should've held it till the end of the season and gone back into the director of rugby role he was brought in to do. Leeds hierarchy then bring in a new coach. Instead we lost our minds and went cheap (again) team falls apart, results go to cock and we are looking for another coach.