That would swipe the taste from your mouth.

You can't polish a turd though. They are not miracle workers.

Biff is an interesting case. He is useful and there is something there. I have always questioned his lack of improvement over the last 3/4 years in a Leeds shirt. I don't think his improvement levels have gone up enough to warrant him a top end prop. But we can see what impact the NRL will have on his game.

Did Mathers, Tansey, Sibbit come back better players? Or were they not really on that level anyway, the bracket I think Biff falls into.

Morley, Ellis, Sam stand out as real handfuls over-there because they stood out over here first as excellent players. It does help.

Good move for Biff, From the interview I read we didnt come out of it very well. 3 days to make a life changing decision and removing the offer when asked for more time??

IMO Biff probably falls into neither catagory mentioned above, somewhere in gthe middle for me.

My thoughts entirely. Weve had a very large squad this year - sadly of average forwards in the main. Certainly the least productive squad of the last few years, but clearly not the cheapest. We can put 2 full packs out and still have spares!

Leuleui
Buderus
Peacock
JJB
Ablett
Sinfield

Cross
McShane
Burgess
Lauitiiti
Hauraki
Clarkson

Bailey
Ambler
Amor
Kirke
Pitts

Then theres always Delaney & Senior (pre injury) if we're short. Crazy!

Leeds and the Leeds CEO have never had the slightest whiff of trouble with regards to adhering to the salary cap in the past ..... which is now a 'live' assessment anyway with all playing contracts lodged with the RFL to ensure compliance.

No SL club should really have any issues in that regard.

Strange it hasn't taken three days to decide on a move to the other side of the world

Unless they have secondary contracts a la melbourne.

Difference being this 'life changing decision' was made over a year ago, which has been well publicised. Its not like the Souths offer came out of the blue is it?

My guess is that the Leeds offer was probably higher than he expected (& better money than Souths) which threw a spanner in the works. Better money or better lifestyle? You cant have your cake & eat it.

Good on GH for not wanting to be messed about with this.

It depends on how long extra biff wanted to decide. I cant imagine he wanted a few months to decide and for me its not "Good on GH" but stupid and pig headded to not give him at least a few extra days to decide

Sounds like he's got a good 2 year deal at South Sidney.

Good luck to the guy

GH has certainly proven to be the master of salary cap management since its introduction, but it is exceptional to release players mid contract with no obvious breach of discipline. I could only come up with 2 possibilities, firstly to trim the cap, secondly (and hopefully) to make room for a new signing. Over to you GH

Much better players than Luke have messed about with GH and failed. Luke had told everybody he was off at the end of season so the Leeds deal was (in theory) lip service. It doesnt take 3 days to say no

If Leeds have reached any kind of settlement with the two players to cover the remainder due under their contracts, that will come off this year's salary cap. I wouldn't expect to see any additions to the squad for the rest of this season.

As Burgess asked to be released from the remainder of his contract I doubt Hetherington will have paid him anything much for the priviledge.

Cross however, you would presume, will have been entitled to a settlement on the remainder of his deal (2011 and 2012) so on balance I agree that it's unlikely it will have provided any spare capacity for a signing this year without Leeds already had that space under the cap.

What it does prove however is that Hetherington's "we're operating at the full cap" mantra is actually a crock of brown stuff, assuming Cross did receive a settlement. Leeds wouldn't have been able to pay him up if they were at full cap as any payment counts towards this year, rather than the year for which it was originally due IIRC.

They would if it was settlement of this years salary. They wouldn't have paid any more (if that) if they were allowing him to become a free agent. Therefore his contract for current year wouldn't be exceeded.

I also think there is a rule whereby a long-term injured player can come off the cap (I think i remember that being the case - isn't that how Bradford afforded Morley on an end of season contract a few years ago) in which case Senior may be off the cap.

Wow, Biff and his mum made their mind up quckly on that Souths deal didn't they?



Let's re-visit my discussion with Gotcha eariler in the thread.....














I'll leave it for others to decide who really had their hand in the sand about Burgess's intention to head off to the NRL.

Lovely stuff that, lovely stuff.

I wondered how long it would take that conversation to resurface

You can't expect adult behaviour tad. But regardless, to be fair to Gareth I was wrong on the contract, simple as that. But his mum was certainly under the impression he had not been offered one a few weeks back. Maybe misunderstanding on the fact that one was offered and then pulled away.

But unless I have missed something and Tom is also going, and the mum staying, then at least I was the one correct there.

If that happens then he can gladly gloat.

I seem to remember that Bradford broke the cap rule in 2005 when they had morley on loan. May have the wrong year but i am pretty sure it was 2005

He is free to find another club but in the mean time he is off on loan to Wigan until the end of the season. Watch him rip it up!

given an extended run with someone I think he will.

I'm amazed we brought him and his family all this way to bin him now after what,about 5/6 games for us?

He was clearly a Bluey signing but still I think he deserved more game time.

Both Kylie and even Peacock were getting stuck on here from some after their first half dozen games or so.

The last 2 games Cross had against Bulls & Cas away I thought he showed real promise. Good tackler,drove the ball in hard and was aggressive (albeit resulting in the odd brain fart of a penalty but there are plenty of other culprits in our squad over the years for giving penalties away whilst in possession)

at least he offered a bit of 'mungrel' in our pack, something which is often missing.

I think he will end of proving to be a good edition for someone if he stats in Super League the next 2/3 years