That's as big a shock as any in this thread.

Until you meet me, you've got me all worked out wrong. Trust me.

Aye, 'appen.

Must admit I find it difficult to see an NRL club paying a significant fee for someone of Orford's age and pay him something near to what we are. If they rate him that highly why didnt they just sign him before he came to us?

mick for a story to be believable you need to keep it consistent. you started this thread with



i.e YOU claimed to have personally seen/talked to leon and some other players in the pub. Now you're claiming that you were told they were in, and now that someone else was winding you up, when confronted with the fact that your so called witnesses state that neither you nor said players were present on the night in question.

Do they still make kids read/watch "billy liar" at school? If not then I'd suggest you rent a copy and watch it as it could be a bio-pic about your life.

and thats maybe the key point saints fans are missing. They can certainly force leon to fulfil his contract. They cant make him play well.

Sts are potentially in the same boat as us with orford and buirgess last year, and leeds with eastwood. We are all stating that we are only going to release the player for £x amount. The reality is that the figure the selling club asks for is usually just a sop to the fans the real figure is usually much more reasonable and usually undisclosed.

As a hypothetical example, say leon is on 120k a year and his injury will force him to miss first 3 months of season. He goes into saints board and makes it clear he is returning to bradford at end of 2011 season no matter what they offer him and would prefer a release now. bradford make a reasonable offer for said release, say 50k.

saints can either

1. pay leon 60k for doing nothing recovering then another 60k for making a less than 100% effort for remainder of season. He then leaves for nothing.

2. give leon the release he wants and get 50k from bradford. They also free up 120k of salary cap for their new coach to spend on players who want to be their (either extensions to lomax,eatmond or a new player entirely).

Other benefit for saints is that they are probably going to see reduced crowds and hence revenue next year whilst playing at widnes (we certainly did during our time at VP and that was much close to odsal than Widnes is to st helens), so it may be attractive to them to lose one of there higher paid stars (who they will lose a year later anyway) and also get some ready cash coming in to offset the reduced crowd revenue.

Certainly not as clear cut as we want 150k and thats it. and lets not forget they cant sell pryce in the short term to anyone else unless he agrees.

Mick would do better reading "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", I suggest?

Leon needs to adopt the "Bad Neck" defence. Similar to Newlove's "Bad Back".

Skints can have a few good fringe players we'll have their star.

Job done.

To be fair to the article, it says that Pryce is high on the wanted list... not that anything has been sorted. I could name a fair few players that are also on our wanted list but it doesn't mean they're going to be pulling on the RAB anytime soon!

I would be highly amused to see Leon's face if he comes back and gets put on the wing for the first game!

Forget the compensation to saints. It would very much be a free transfer.

of course it would be, in fact we should pay you to take one of our marquee players off our hands while he's under contract!

oh go on then. seeing as your offering. to save you having to scrape cash together we'll take eastmond as full and final settlement

Oh dear. You do know he's supposed to be out until late March/ April with this neck injury right? With all neck injuries, there is always skepticism over full recovery and ability to complete a fitness test.

So if we only have him for 25 weeks of the season we should just hive him to you for free? You're frickin insane!

Not at all. PM incoming.

Saints also have a new stadium to pay for! A reasonable transfer fee and Leon off the wage bill might pay for some nice curtains

Ive read this thread and if im being honest, it's pretty funny.

IMO leon will be at saints next season. He may be a bull in 2012 but i think he will sign a two year deal at saints if his injury is ok.

The is no facts to this thread, it's all hear say.

Only time will tell but im pretty certain he will be a saints for 1 more full season.

Talking of his injury, i spoke to leon at the giants game in the club after the match, he told me he will be back in training at the start of the year and said he should be fit for the cardiff games, and also looking forward to playing the world club challenge if we win at old trafford.

Well time will tell people.

So your "conversation" with Leon is any more meaningful than the one Mick had at the beginning of this thread? You're as much in the dark as he is, so don't pretend.

I'd be far more inclined to believe Connor Murphy, who has become a respected journalist under our eyes, and a very credible one. Trust us on that one, he wouldn't put it in the T&A if it didn't have substance.

Reading the article it says that Leon is high on your wanted list. We all know he wants to go back to Bradford at some point but not neccesarily when he is still in contract.

Just because he's on your wanted list it doesnt mean you will get him. I'd quite like somebody to hand me millions of pounds on a plate but it isn't going to happen.

We aren't saying we will, we are saying it's a [upossibility[/u. We are all in the dark here you know just as much about it as us and you would be daft to say it's not a [upossibility[/u

Of course it is a possibility, Bradford is his home town club and he will always have ties to you. I do however feel that some fans are blowing it far out of proportion and making much more out of it than there really is.

Connor has established very considerable credibility amongst the fans since his arrival from the wet side of the Pennines a year ago.

I can't see him jeopardising that for a story without any foundation.

Agree he's no Dave Craven.

Is it just me or is anyone else getting a tad annoyed with players jumping ship early in their contracts? Burgess I can understand - going to the NRL was slightly different and he's a young man who was always going to give it a go at some stage.

But Eastwood at Leeds, Johnson at Cats and possibly Orford just seem to be saying 'I'm homesick, let me leave or I'll pout'. Players bleat about loyalty a lot. Some of them obviously believe its a one-way street.