I'll be there, with my RFL freebies, fully supporting Leeds.

not being funny but the Aussies are no more big headed and arrogant as the Leeds fans were towards Cas and wakey fans after they had beat them this year,

Storm to absolutely hammer them please

I'm English, so I don't care if Leeds [iare[/i big headed on a domestic basis - they're [imy[/i big headed team for this game!

Go Leeds!

Can you elaborate?

It's funny when the Australian team win it, they came over to claim victory and have been preparing for it. But if they loose, it is just a warm-up game that they don't care about.

well you can do the same!

And did they deserve to be faced with a disproportionate ridiculous £3m+ lawsuit and bankruptcy and financial oblivion because of what looked very much like the obsession of a former chairman? Over a player who clearly had no desire to return to you and whose return most objective observers believe would have benefited you not at all? Did the subsequent administration deserve to be put in a position where they had to settle with Leeds, rather than let the courts decide, because Leeds were financially very strong due to mainly to their owner and the astute property and other actions he took, whereas Bradford could not afford to take the risk of losing? Acting in a ridiculuous fashion or not, did the Bulls deserve to be hamstrung for years because one commercial organisation seemed determined to do to another commercial organisation OFF the park what it had been hitherto unable to do to it ON the park? Did the Bulls deserve to be punished so severely for what looked to be the obsessions of individuals to get the better of the other?

Yes.

your chairman at the time, a sports lawyer, chose to go to court. i'm sure he could have settled earlier and far cheaper.
at the end of the day everyone, harris included, knew he signed a deal to return to leeds after union.

anyhows to the jealous ones, you have to be in it to win and you aren't in it!

i think the wcc has served it's time and despite whats said both sides will be glad to get it out of the way.
after 2007 when we tried to peak for it and paid the price in the summer we haven't shot out of the blocks in the last two years. indeed we have started slowly and got better as the season progressed.
i would love to win it but i would rather have had the 2 points at wakey

Move it to Dubai or something.
Best bet all round

....and breathe.

The Bulls weren't being punished. Leeds were seeking a remedy they were rightfully entitled to.

If it were disproportionate and ridiculous it should've been fought. Leeds motives ahve always been to persue a remedy they warned the Bulls about beforehand, a remedy they sought when the Bulls tried to have the case thrown out of court on a preliminary issue (Leeds were righteous again on that occasion remember). The Bulls initially tackled the litigation all guns blazing. That they didn't have the stomach for the fight is a poor reflection of them, not us.

Whether the player had a desire to return or not is, frankly, irrelevant. He was contractually obliged to do so, your club were notified and chose to sign him regardless.

You, more than anyone, should know you cannot lift the corporate veil and it is very easy to blame your actions on a departed director. But it was the Bulls, not Caisley individually, who signed Harris. It was the Bulls, not Caisley individually who ignored Hetheringtons' warning. It was the Bulls, not Caisley individually who acted improperly in failing to contact us to seek permission and then pay for our asset.

It was the Bulls, after Caisley left, who decided to abandon their defence, which we had been told was so very strong, especially after Mainstream. If the case they were facing were so frivolous it was the Bulls (under their current management) who made the decision to drop their defence and reach a settlement. The Bulls may now try and seek the sympathy vote by implying they were being bullied but, frankly, had the boot been on the other foot I can already imagine the public outrage and ridiculous public commentary that would have come from the Bulls current management.

The Bulls are a commercial organisation , not a particularly good one then and now it would seem, but a commercial one nonetheless.

Painting yourselves as victims smacks of an investment banker blaming everyone else because he can't get a £2 milion bonus anymore.

A bit disingenuous there, Gareth, especially given our previous discussions, sometimes off-board?

Were Leeds rightfully entitled to a remedy amounting to over £3m? In respect of a player who they could only contractually oblige to re-sign for two years at most, or secure a transfer fee reflecting that, and at a package no less than he left on so whatever sponsorship was lined would surely go in big part to paying that package? How, for a club that anyway went on to win the Super League that season so would surely struggle to show major financial loss, could you see a claim for over £3m being anything other than punitive?

The Bulls were faced with an adversary giving every indication of being determined to win out whatever the cost - because he could afford it. He could underwrite any amount of legal fees if he so chose, and legal fees on both sides was all he faced if he lost.

Bulls by contrast faced not just your fees as well as their own, but the £3m+ damages claim as well if THEY lost. And, unlike Leeds, with no rich owner to underwrite any of that at need. So the comparative risks of losing were very one-sided.

Now YOU Gareth, if you were advising the Bulls directors, they who you allege had no stomach for a fight, what would you have told them? Let us conjecture a scenario, for the sake only of illustration and example, shall we?

You know that the Mainstream precedent meant that Leeds would have to show that inducement by Bradford for Harris to breach contract would firstly have to be proven, and secondly would then have to have been done with the intent of damaging Leeds financially. You heard initially all sorts of reasons from the former chairman ("FC"icon_wink.gif as to why that could not have been the case, but the FC is no longer there, and the remaining directors, with whom you rarely dealt before given the dominant role the FC always played, are looking to you for advice.

It may be that they suggest that they were previously "guided" by their lawyer FC and largest club shareholder? It may be that they advise you he gave the board assurances that he had no knowledge of the various interlocking contracts at the time of signing, and that Leeds never appraised him of their existence? And/or it may be that they say he assured the board that any contract would anyway be voided under restraint of trade? It may be that the board, recognising his profession and professional standing, say they felt justified in placing reliance on such assurances? And it may be that they now tell you they have reason to believe that their confidence was misplaced, for reasons they explain, and you feel that may be a reason why it is they, not he, now asking you for advice? It may further be that you have now seen evidence that Leeds did make the FC aware of the contractual situation prior to the signing. Indeed, you say pretty well that in what you say above. It may be any or all of these things, or none of them, but let us for now play it out as if it was these things, shall we? Since we were none of us there so can only conjecture?

So Gareth, maybe you would have a little chat with the directors about their responsibilities as directors? You wold likely straight away ascertain that the club would be insolvent immediately should the case be lost. You already understand - you said it above so let us proceed as if that was the case - that Leeds could indeed show that they had indeed made the FC aware before the signing but the FC proceeded anyway? You maybe start to feel uneasy about the implications for a weakened "Mainstream" defence? Maybe you ascertain the amount the club COULD conceivably settle and still stay solvent. And maybe you put it to the directors that they have to decide whether the club - and they personally - can afford to take the risk that they MIGHT lose? Having regard to their fiduciary responsibilities as directors? Maybe you and the directors also consult with the club auditors, who explain the implications of material uncertainty for the accounts and their report. And maybe you close by asking the directors if they are prepared to bet the club, against a determined and wealthy adversary, on what just might, depending on the judge, be ruled to be only a pair of fives?

In that hypothetical situation Gareth, what would your advice to the directors be?

Whatever the actual facts of the situation might have been, and whether or not they bear relation to anything in our illustrative example we will likely never know for sure, I am sure you will agree the club will not have abandoned its defence lightly, and presumably then had to settle two lots of substantial legal fees as well as any financial settlement arising, without the directors having taken full professional advice? And without them having carried out a full and careful assessment of the situation and the potential outcomes?

It seems in little doubt that the Bulls - Caisley - whatever - were extremely unwise, to put it mildly, to proceed with the signing as they did. Me and numerous others were made to look idiots when it transpired that the public assurances of the Chairman, on which we (and maybe the other directors?) had so naïvely relied, were ruled (by Mr Justice Gray) or otherwise proved to be invalid.

But equally, to say that a claim for over £3m could have been seen as a fair and equitable (as opposed to punitive) remedy, or to say that the remaining directors had no stomach for a fight, is something I would not have expected of you.

I'm not going to get into a long further debate with you over this - you do this for living, so in the end you would likely grind me down - I do something else - but (and my apologies to anyone else bored with this - you don't have to read it) I felt unable to let those two key aspects of your argument go uncontested.

Adey,

I take on board everything you have said.

However, none of that makes the Bulls victims in this. The consequences of their actions may have been severe and may have been punitive but they were still the consequences of [itheir[/i actions.

I think its' very convenient of the Bulls present management to blame financial constraints as a reason for abandoning their defence. It might well have been. But they could raise £1 million in Harris salary over 4 years. The legal costs would not have been that high. Remember, if they would have won their defence they would not have been paying any costs, the loser would likely have done that.

Whilst we're doing scenarios, imagine you have secured a contract obliging Burgess to sign for you if he ever returns to Bradford. He's the face of your club, you have massive sponsorship lined up for his return but we sign him. We do so flagrantly, in the face of your directors who are telling us he is your player. We go ahead anyway without consultation to the Bulls.

Hood would be apoplectic and the Bulls (and their fans) would be baying for Hetheringtons' blood. Would you want the Bulls to protect their interests or would you want them to meekly accept our actions because pursuing your remedies might affect Leeds finances? BTW, I know the answer, consider the question rhetorical.

I'll leave it now (hopefully with the last word

) because whilst you and I find all this fascinating we've gone wildly OT and I suspect have bored every other reader.

Gareth - and then this WILL be my last word, so the thread can resume its rightful course - glad you acknowledge that Leeds' response way well have been punitive. That is one of the two key points i was trying to make.

And of course you know the answer with your Burgess scenario. I would be one of many going apoplectic...just as GH did. And the initial reaction of myself and numerous other Bulls fans to the Harris signing, and to GH's public apoplexy, reflected what our illustrious former Chairman was telling everyone - and indeed reinforced when GH subsequently apologised for his "cohersed" comments. If it is indeed correct that GH DID make Caisley fully aware of the contractual situation before the signing (I have never seen this confirmed unequivocally, so can only deduce it from subsequent events) then Caisley, and therefore the Bulls, were somewhere between extremely unwise and downright reckless in going ahead with the signing. And we the fans would have been very badly let down,and from that need to learn lessons for the future. That should be perfectly clear from what I have said on the subject?

I think it should also be pointed out that the club have never, to my knowledge, publically blamed anything for abandoning their defence other than that they had to do what was in the club's best long-term interests, and have never sought to my knowledge to "play the victim" in all this. Far from it. It is commentators like me who are deducing things, rightly or wrongly, from the circumstances, and so it is against commentators like me that any criticisms should be be aimed - not the club.

As for your "they could raise the money to pay Harris but not to mount a defence" argument, well that defence would of course be on top of what they had to pay Harris so I do not see the connection? Plus it sidesteps the issue of whether the Bulls could also afford to pay £3m plus in damages as well.

You also no doubt heard that Harris was apparently being paid a significant amount of money for his Image rights by Publico, and that for reasons which are still unclear to me these payments were subsequently deemed to be payments to Harris by a "connected party" and therefore within the salary cap - hence the retrospective breach. Whether these payments formed any part of the "£1m salary" you refer to I could not say. If perchance they DID, then it could help explain both how the Bulls were able to afford Harris (and indeed how Leeds might have been able to within the cap, if a similar arrangement was lined up) AND why (once the particulars of Harris' package became public in Mr Justice Gray's judgment) the image rights might have been deemed subsequently to be from a connected party. I stress...this is all further conjecture on my part.

Anyway, I agree. Last word from me now. As you were, everybody else.

Well we certainly dont stand a chance now that Stevo has just tipped us to win on SSN

Football rivalry is more tribal than RL rivalry. In the example you've used, Liverpool fans crow about the fact that they've won 5 European Cups and United only 3. Hence neither side wants the other to win more and catch up/move further in front. No one sees the clubs as 'English' clubs, they just see them as Liverpool or United or whoever else it might be.

As for Leeds and Melbourne... Can't say I'm too fussed, to be honest. Unless they've been saving themselves recently I can't see Leeds winning this one.

Yours,

Arthur Jensen.

[Didn't read other than first page

Not supporting either, looking forward to a great match for neutrals like me.

Judging by the weather the big loser on the night will be the Elland road groundstaff.

By sunday Hunslet could have the best playing surface in the whole of Leeds.

With Dewsbury in 2nd, the sloaping Batley pitch in 3rd and that patchy bit of grass in gipton where they leave the burnt out cars in 4th!

What he said. Got two freebies for Sunday but can't say I'm particularly desperate to use them at such a dump of a ground and a game that could quite possibly be a walkover.

Well, we're good but give Melbourne some credit mate - they're not Saints

Brilliant


Funny guy

We just spit on rah rah pretenders. Like you.

Not genuine rugby league fans from England.

The latter are our brothers.

The pretenders - our enemies.

Now you can understand why not many away fans came to Hilton Park.