Went to see the Wales v Jamaica game tonight. Joseph didn't play for Wales. Peltier came off the bench for Jamaica though. Have to say, he looks like a project. He's a bloody big bloke and he's clearly hard to put down. A couple of times there were two defenders hanging off him and he was nowhere near going down. But he does look like he lacks the skill set a bit. If he has an offload game, it didn't show tonight. One thing though, he was more of a handful for the Welsh defenders than I've seen Lauaki be in two years.



Rohan's comments about him needing work but having the potential sounded about right to me.

Wonder why Joseph didn't play?

Thats the point, a player exchange is no good but we would be open to a cash offer. Bradford can not do cash though so Salford would be his likely destination if we got desperate.

Confirmed in T&A that Kurt Haggerty has 'retired' and taken up a coaching position with Toronto



Seems a bit of an odd one to me. Unless there is a long-term injury we don't know about, it seems strange for a 27 year old bloke to 'retire' from playing.



How long into next season before Toronto get a few injuries and - surprise, surprise - Haggerty is suddenly called out of 'retirement'...

Exactly my thinking regarding Haggerty.

I hope the club have decided to keep his playing registration.

Definitely going to happen I would have thought, look at the way Jake Emmitt signed for them telling Leigh it was his dream to play in Australia, only to coe back in a month sign for Swinton then on to Toronto, not a big fan of all this bleating Leigh fans have done about Toronto but this definitely looks a similar situation to me as he just signed the 2 year contract with us

We can do cash. Eventually.



Usually just a few days late.

Easy to resolve though, keep his playing registration, however suspect we have just agreed a termination and got him off the wage bill with immediate effect

Should now see if Smith rates Olbison bearing in mind the lack of back rowers we have at the moment

IIRC we've done that before when Karl Pryce went to union and on his return to RL Wigan paid us to transfer his reg.

If we keep his playing registration they either cough up or he has to wait for contact with us to expire.

Would we have to continue to pay him though? It would be cutting off our nose to spite the face if so.

Don't think we will owe him anything tbh, but by allowing him to leave a two year contract we have done him a pretty big favour and he [morally, at least does owe us.



If he'd come out and said, "I want to play for them", we'd have come to an arrangement with Toronto, but as he hasn't, I don't see the problem in hanging on to his registration - after all, if he's not interested in playing then he, presumably, doesn't want it and if he IS interested in playing, then we're entitled to take that into account when he leaves.

No. We don't have to pay. It's similar to a non-compete clause. I believe we did it with Karl Pryce when he first left to go play Union.

I assume Karl signed that and took it literally.

Interesting to see that Joe Keyes played at hooker for Ireland at the weekend, despite Liam Finn being in the side at 7 (Finn has played quite a bit of hooker in the past).



Perhaps Keyes would be an option if AOB was to be out, and Rohan doesn't think Lumb is up to it yet? (Because let's be honest, nobody thinks Halafihi is up to it).

I don't think Smith has an issue with Lumb. Somebody on the thread earlier hit the nail on the head imo - we're looking for somebody who can cover AOB for a 20 minute breather but be an option elsewhere on the pitch for the rest of the game, rather than wasting a bench spot on a hooker for 20 minutes.

I'm talking more when O'Brien is injured. I don't think Lumb is up to playing 80 minutes and Halafihi certainly isn't. And as the squad stands right now, I don't see anyone else who would spell Lumb.

In all honesty, why bother? He's an average Championship player, what are we likely to receive in way of fee?



In any case, his comments since leaving would suggest his attitude is one we are better off without. We saw enough players 'going through the motions' last season. We need players who fully buy into the Bulls and are prepared to show a bit of fight for the badge.

this ^

Even if we got £20, it would be better in our coffers than theirs. They certainly don't look like they'd miss a chunk of money.



I would suggest it's the principle though. As long as it doesn't cost anything to hold the registration, then it's a "We've done the right thing by letting you out of your contract early, but if you've lied to us, they can bloody well pay for you". If he never plays again, all feelings remain good and no harm done to anyone.

I agree, plus in 2018 if he comes out of retirement he could well be playing against us for a promotion rival when he should have been under contract to us. Perfectly fair to hold his registration, but Id guess we haven't.

there does seem to be some sort of checking going on at Red Hall.

The precedence I'd be looking at is whatever we did with Karl Pryce when he went to Gloucester. Whatever we did to hold the registration then, Wigan had to pay us a transfer fee when they signed him back to League.



Although admittedly, I'm still not 100% that it was a real thing that Wigan signed that useless sack of....

Some signing news today apparently.