You certainly messed up with your negotiations with Jake Connor.

Was thinking something similar.

What an England debut for him. He's turned this match on its head.

Most of us knew it at the time, this was my comment when it was rumoured he was going. What a monumental error of judgement from our management team.

Not often I'm right so I'll enjoy this

One in a series of epic HR foul ups.

Did anyone actually lose their job over it?

God forbid a player would want to leave a club languishing at the bottom of the table and in danger of relegation to go to a challenge cup winning club!
All RTs fault- nowt to do with stone or Connor- pathetic!!!

The club ended up in a position where they had a player on their books who didn’t want to leave but to keep him they would have had to pay a transfer fee to a club he’d never played for.

Paying a transfer fee to keep your own player!

As cock ups go, it was a pretty spectacular one.

They had a player who HAD wanted to leave because of our coach, who was then sacked, but when he changed his mind after he’d gone it was too late as he’d already signed. FC could have acted in a more moral way- but unlike us that’s clearly not the way they do business.
That wasn’t an HR error- it was a Connor error
It was Connor who made those decisions- and Connor who put pen to paper - we cannot force players to make decisions we want them to make.
I bet he’s glad he made it now!

We tried to pay him less than he was worth, can't blame a young lad for wanting to earn to his potential.

Thewles said it was the most we had ever offered such a young player. But that's such a cop out comment, if all the other players had signed for 4 peanuts and we offered jake 5 it doesn't necessarily mean he's been offered a good deal,just a less crap one than the other youngsters.

We then spent probably four times as much on two lesser players in the same mould in Rankin and Gaskell.

Hopefully we've learnt our lesson from this.

Cough kopczak and Mason cough.

The reality is our CEO thought he could get away with it because he thought we were entitled to compensation.

The reality is we were not and whoever was dealing with it at Hull FC was more savvy and clever than ours.

dont see how it was stones fault, connor had already signed the deal when stone arrived!

in hindsight the club should have paid to get him out of the hull deal but history now

We were entitled to compensation.
FC weren’t more savvy - they were more immoral.
If connors birthday has been in, say, March they wouldn’t have been able to do what they did to cheat us out of development money.
But then we know their chairman is a rat.

Sad to say but i don't think Connor would have matured into the player he is now if he had stayed here. He was visibly out of shape here, and just going through the motions. He needed the move to another environment to kick on, as some players do. I am sad that the great talent he has become (and i think he will be an England half for many years) has been lost to us, but i really don't think we would have turned him into the player he is now at Hull. We will however, never know.

some of our youngsters might think they will improve for a different club too

we have signed most up though now

Perhaps not- it’s often horses for courses. Some players thrive more under certain coaches or at certain clubs than others.
Look at ferres- steady at Cas, brilliant for us, poor at Leeds.
Gale- mr ordinary most of his career, blossomed later in life at Cas,

I think any utility player or half back to some extent however talented is only as good as the players in the group that he is in.

At Hull he’s had to force his way into the team and compete with Kelly, Snead etc etc and this does tend to focus the mind when you are an ambitious young fella like Jake is/was. He will have been mentored by better players with a higher expectation of what they require from him which again will have improved his game and decision making.

He has ‘natural sass’ a definite requirement if you want to make it at the top level.

If we can take any consolation from this saga it is that we seem to have done a far better job of retaining our current young talent since this and maybe if we do sign Uate, Hastings and a couple of others working within this group with coaching from Woolford, Edwards, Thorman and Robinson means that this type of environment will exist at the Giants and our current talent will thrive like Jake has done at Hull as I don’t think he would have done under Anderson or Stone.

Kopczak and Mason cough cough, It were all a conspiracy a tell thee

AP a rat?

I've sent him a link to your comment.

Just so you know Jools, your posts at times are usually blinkered, and naive at best, your missive above is obtuse and clumsy, and to be honest downright personal, shame on you, you disgrace the good name of Huddersfield supporters.

Bless. Just think if he’d have had his way with Ken Davy he’d be in charge of a premier league football team now.

you are an embarrassment to your fellow Huddersfield fans. Good job you're in the minority.

No. I’m not watching Mr Thewlis.

Why? Should I be?

I see jools hasn't backed up her Rat comment, typical kbw

Oh come on, Jools might be a bit one eyed but if you really have then that's pretty sad.

I dont know all the ins and outs of the deal that saw Connor come to us, but by all accounts Hull weren't entitled to pay compensation. You can say that they were immoral or that they played the system if you want, but ateotd what club is going to pay out if they can avoid it? I am absolutely certain that Huddersfield will have done something similar in the past.

As for Connor himself. My understanding is that the deal was signed and then he started having second thoughts. Whether this was something to do with Stone, or whether it was the prospect of leaving his mates behind at Huddersfield or whatever, I'm not sure. Hull stuck to their guns and said we aren't releasing him, if you want to keep him you will have to pay. In hindsight, Thewlis should have swallowed his pride and got his cheque book out, but it was a difficult position for him to be in.

Slander and defamation, both illegal.