a lot for a championship player!

Wouldn't surprise me, rumour is they are paying the young winger they signed from wakey a similar amount. Probably much better value in the long run than journeymen aussies or top 4 cast offs for 3 times the money

Your right there Chris.Just who are the players pointing the finger at and who do you drop as non performing

Talanoa he is out anyway

Manu for missing too many tackles

Minichello missing tackles

Watts for not been as effective as last season

Ellis for conceding too many penalties out of frustration

Washbrook ineffective

Thompson ineffective

Sneyd Poor

Tiumavave Poor

Shaul for dropping a high ball leading to a try

Logan for continually jumping the line

Abdul not fit enough,needs game time



I would stick with the same squad with Naughton in for Talanoa and minimal other changes

Judging by Cooke's article the focus would have been on players deemed to have not been working hard enough rather than genuine mistakes. The players themselves will know who they are far better than we can judge.

Cookie's theory suggests it was all down to Abdul then unless Feka and Green come in for two of the forwards that played at Widnes. Perm any two from about 7!

As has already been suggested, it is certainly no secret around East Hull that Reece Dean has had at least one meeting with Jamie Peacock with regard to next season.



I've never seen him play but if Radford doesn't fancy him, Rovers definitely do!

Losing dean to the bin dippers would come back to bite us in the same way letting them have josh hodgson did.

Interesting one about Dean. Leeds pay Lilley and Sutcliffe £32k in total, so if Rovers are offering just Dean £35k it's easy to see his head being turned. Him and HTW, whom I think has been picked for England before are the same age. Perhaps we only think one homegrown half is realistic? We've also got the likes of Turgut and Lancaster to retain, and I guess we can't keep everyone and choices need to be made. If he thinks he'll be getting first team rugby over there, then good luck to him. Precedents aren't that compelling; I recall Beharrell scapegoated in the record 84-6 defeat by Wigan - did he ever play again for them?

Watts and westerman also played together in same junior teams at lock lane in cas - so guess always likely to be more cas lads off to Warrington rumours. No idea if any truth in it

I heard that interview with BM and I could imagine Lilley being on 16K but it seems light for Sutcliffe who's played a fair bit of SL. When you hear about wages like that it comes as no real surprise that kids aren't been drawn to the bright lights of RL.



I don't think Beharrell was 'scapegoated' by anyone for the Wigan defeat, I don't think anyone was. He never really kicked on from that performance and was just stuck behind Dobson and Burns who missed very few games. Suppose the fact that he's not been snapped up by the big boys anytime since speaks volumes that maybe he just wasn't good enough.



Going on recent history our home grown half back is getting a fair bit of first team rugby, probably more due to having a pair of shot 1st team ones, but still he's playing when fit.

haven't Leeds always had a more balanced wage bill with greater win bonuses?

Spot on. Wages at Headingley are actually very modest. There is no one on a huge salary and there is a very structured set up with players only climbing up the ladder once Hetherington believes they deserve it...no demanding of increases over there!



That being said, players WANT to play for Leeds. They know that they have the chance of winning silverwear and they have a fantastic set up. This is why the biggest signing for KR last year was Peacock, and I said at the time that the behind the scenes knowledge that he will bring to KR will be invaluable in the long run.

This is something that gets aired a fair bit and to be honest I don't really understand it. Surely knowing the length of an RL career (and sometimes extremely shortened) then a world class player like say Sinfield or Peacock would be able to demand a very high salary, now I get that Leeds win things and its a very good shop window, but paying the bills and setting up for the future must come into it.



I've heard the same said of Wigan, which is fine but the likes of Farrell must be looking at the wage Tomkins is supposedly on and wonder if he's worth that much more than him.

A lot of the philosophy at Leeds was instigated by Sinfield himself. He basically said, we can all move elsewhere and earn better money, but if we take a small hit to our earning potential, we can stay together, win a load of trophies and create a legacy. I believe his parents were socialists, which explains his idea somewhat.



Obviously this worked, but there were players that left along the way that didn't fully buy into it, like Calderwood & Diskin.



The Leeds club are also incredibly good at making sure their players are skilled for when their careers end. It is part of their contract that for those players without young families, must dedicate time in their week to either education or some sort of work experience. I recently spoke to Jordan Lilley about this as he is working with Alex Simmons in events.



Peacock obviously gained his Masters too, and Burrow I believe trained as a sports masseur.

Again, spot on. Sinny also gained his degree whilst at Leeds and as you say, they are very big on preparing the players for life after RL.



Contrary to popular belief, Sinny took a pay cut to play Union at Carnegie. He'd always wanted a crack in the other code and when the chance came he took it because he knew he didn't want to play at any other RL club even though he could've got a contract pretty much anywhere.

Its a great philosophy and obviously worked for Leeds, I suppose its a lot harder for clubs that aren't classed as champion challenging teams to get to that position. The lure of 'instant' better rugby, higher profile and ultimately higher wages will always draw them away. Suppose Leeds is also a more attractive proposition from a living there point of view than Hull.



Will be interesting to see if Mr Peacock tries to implement that with my team and also how easy he finds this in a less successful regime.

Winning trophies means money that can be added to each players salary without it being part of the cap. When you add up the costs of full support for a degree and other educational options open to players plus benefits that can be excluded out of the SC it can add up to a lot. I'm also sure that the Hetherington's are astute in their ability to make any given player's salary stretch just that little bit further with some cunning juggling of the accounts and advice on how to pay as little tax as is possible.

Thought watts was a bit better tonight.

Fancy talking about Watts on a Rhinos wages thread

He certainly seemed to play with more confidence and not glaring at the ref. Wasn't Feka down to play instead?

Still gave away a stupid penalty lifting the tackled players leg and Wakey scored straight after

Thought Watts was very good last night,ran hard,made very good metres and tackled well.

Not sure how it came across on the radio but their try was a failure in basic defence by one of our youngsters. We gave away loads of penalties particularly in the second half. I suppose one positive was at least that we defended the rest of them.

He cert looked like his old self. But we still look laboured IMO. Got to lift it for next week and I think.we will

Radford has an OK record in getting teams up for the derby. I think Rovers will win, mind.

God forbid!!!