He convinced his bosses he was a SL head coach for 4 years when all available evidence suggested otherwise. Not stupid.

They might be

Got to agree, he has managed to portray himself as this 'nice, humble simpleton from Fev' however there have been plenty of times when this mask has slipped and he has shown himself to be pretty arrogant and full of himself.

But, but, but, you've been telling me for years how great communication is with the club and how great the old board was and how they weren't taking cash out and how everything off the field was tickety boo

Even to the end in his last post match interview he was talking about what great shape he was leaving the club in and how he couldn't explain our 11th consecutive ting by Leeds as it was "uncharacteristic". The more I think about the 18th man thing, which was totally out of the blue when we you think he'd not debuted [uanyone[/u in the previous 27 rounds, the more I'm convinced it was sticking 2 fingers up at the fans and enjoying it. Just so grateful I'm not a Wakefield supporter.

The old board kept us solvent; the communication went downhill with the tragic demise of Airlie Night, which I really enjoyed with the old bull$ bingo card. And we do have a very nice club shop



Of course the more sombre lesson in all this is that, with a £2m tax bill looming, without AP's takeover there may not even be a club now. Can't see the old board bailing us out of a change in Revenue rules to the tune of £2m. All hail AP.

[url=http://viewtopic.php?f=17&t=508911Indeed[/url. Wakey, not Cas, methinks.

I know you have a lot to blame agar for but I don't think you can blame him for this one. There were rumours around the back end of last week that leeds were sniffing around young briscoe, I suspect agar was told to include him in the squad as a last chance to get him to sign his new contract that was supposedly on the table, kind of showing him he's not far off making the first team etc.

If your looking to blame anyone it should be the head of youth development or ultimately james rule who signs off on new contracts for not pursuing this a lot earlier. A friend of mine is related to one of your under 20's players, a lad who has won a couple of player of the year awards in the past in the age groups, he was telling me most of the out of contract young lads were meeting the management for the first time this week (he went in on tuesday) to find out if they were to be offered anything and up to now non of them had any clue if they were being kept on or not. I think this lack of activity on the youth front sums up your club during the last regime and i would expect its one of the first things to be addressed by adam pearson.

Whilst it is not good to lose a good young player, ultimately we will probably become a stronger club out of situations such as this. The lack of players coming through the system has been startling. The review that will take place should highlight where the failings have been, and go some way to righting the wrongs of the past regime.
It certainly looks like Uncle Kath and Agar have had a bit of fun at our expense. Just makes me even more glad that we now have Pearson at the helm.

Hopefully this will be the catalyst to ensure the younger players are treated better and not allowed to leave.

I agree it can't be a coincidence.

Shame about Luke and all that but I doubt if this is even a catalyst for an overhaul of the way we treat our youth setup, I reckon that will already have been underway.

First on the list, get rid of 'Our Lasty' please

Not great news but not the end of the world.

He maye turn out good, he may turn out another Tommy Lee.

The important thing for Hull is to learm from this and make sure it doesn't happen again.

Get players like James Cunningham and any other top young players signed up.

Due to having Burrow/McGuire/Sinfield around Leeds have lost a number of halfbacks (both stand off and scrum half) at junior level to other clubs over the years - Gale looks pretty good and I'd bet Leeds would love to have him in the squad. I'd guess that we will have struggled to get the best 15/16-year old halfbacks to sign up with our Academy for the same reason.

This time last year Leeds made a fanfare of signing Kettlewell from Wigan, who has since been released. The injury to McGuire (highlighting our complete lack of depth), coupled with the possibility that Burrow will mostly play hooker under McDermott, means that Leeds see a real need for a genuine backup halfback for next year and beyond. If Hetherington said to Briscoe that (form permitting) he'd be first choice reserve halfback for next season, and offered him a decent wedge, his decision to move wouldn't be surprising.

Just slightly off topic, I've long thought that clubs ought to get some sort of salary cap exemption for family ties. They have a father/son rule in AFL in Australia which lets them pay more for a kid who's dad played for the team. I think its great to see brothers play in the same side, or for kids to play for the same team as their dad. You'd just have to set a rule on minimum qualification for the father-son rule (e.g. father must have played 100 games or started pro career there) - otherwise Lee Crooks' son (as an example) could choose Hull, Leeds or Cas. Not sure how a brother rule would work....

Got your wish, mate



[urlhttp://www.hullfc.com/newsarticle.aspx?n=19197[/url

Keyser Agar

It's a disappointing turn of events, but if one of the outcomes is to highlight the need to make our youngsters feel valued by the club instead of treating them as if they should feel honoured we've done them the favour of letting them turn out for us (as it seems to have), it's probably a price worth paying.

Good call.

For me its not the player, its the way its been handled

For every next big thing there are 100 plying trade in the sunday league.

Your missing the point.

Nearly everyone on here unhappy not because it is Luke Briscoe leaving but because one of our academy projects have been poached away from the club against our wishes.

Luke Briscoe could have been anybody and this page would still have been 10 pages long.

I seem to remember similar outrage when Lee Radford was allowed to leave for Bradford many years ago. When it is a potentially good academy player it seems to sting a bit more.

The fact Graham Davey, Shaun McRae and now Adam Pearson have come out and expressed thier dissapointment and anger that this has been allowed to happen only strenghtens posters opinions that are annoyed.

Whats done is done but the club need to learn a big lesson from this, at no point should a kid you are looking to keep be allowed to leave in this manner.

I would like to think our fans are more credible than that, surely we all learned from the Graeme Horne hype.

You maybe right and most might be outraged due to it being a Briscoe. But after reading this thread I have seen nothing to suggest this is the case and people are just more annoyed about the fact a young kid has been poached against our wishes.

I assume the buck has stopped here. The new dawn of us treating the kids properly hopefully has begun with the Cunnigham announcement as he has been courted by other clubs too.

According to Smailes - Hull offered 1 year part-time; Leeds offered 3 years full time and straight in the first team squad.
Easy decision for Luke, really.

If true then its a no brainer,

Although I would be surprised with all the outrage from the club in the fallout. A part team deal would suggest he was not a top priority to keep.

when was Smailes last right about something? I wouldn't even trust him to tell me the time.

Is James Rule still with the Hetheringtons daughter by the way? If so, there will still be potential for 'industrial espionage' at play!