Cooke stirs up some excitement (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Cooke stirs up some excitement

9:57am Friday 27th April 2007

• Print
• Email
• Share

Cristiano Ronaldo, having just ‘signed’ a new deal with Manchester United, walks out of Old Trafford after informing the club he is joining Manchester City. For nothing.

Never going to happen? Well, in all honesty it wouldn’t, but that is the parallel with the on-going drama currently being played out over at Hull.

Just for those who may not have somehow heard the story: Paul Cooke, Hull’s star man and soon due a testimonial, handed in his resignation on Monday to take up an offer to join struggling arch city rivals Hull KR in a move that has stunned the rugby league fraternity.

He claims the contract extension he agreed with Hull was never actually signed so he is a free agent. Last season’s Grand Finalists Hull reckon it is binding because the player has honoured the terms of the deal for the last ten months. Rovers, meanwhile, have offered the classy playmaker a three-and-a-half-year contract which the lifelong Rovers fan has accepted, but the RFL have blocked the audacious move.

They refused to accept Cooke’s registration believing he is contracted to the Airlie Birds and urged the player to resolve his differences with Hull. Some chance. Cooke has already gone public on his desire to join Rovers on his native east side of the rugby-mad city. It’s impossible to imagine him pulling on a Hull jersey again.

The whole saga seemed destined to end up in a tribunal to decide what his contractual situation really is and whether or not Rovers have to pay a transfer fee of some sort, although the two parties are currently trying to reach a compromise.

Since Cooke walked out on the KC Stadium, Rovers have always maintained he’d debut for them in tonight’s game against Huddersfield. With all the subsequent wranglings that seemed implausible but they have left open a spot in their 18-man squad for the Super League contest and a deal may yet be done in time.

If not – get ready for this – he could make his bow next week at the Millennium Stadium AGAINST Hull in the 200th derby between the famous old foes. Imagine that? Will Hull insist he can’t play against his former employer or will they relish the chance of bashing him around for 80 minutes?

If the goal-kicking Cooke does end up signing for relegation-threatened Hull KR it will be the biggest coup in years. If the prized asset goes for nowt then someone at the KC Stadium has made the biggest cock-up in decades.

By not actually getting their man to put pen to paper on a deal they had already announced to the media, Hull left themselves frighteningly exposed but they remain confident in their legal argument.

How strong Rovers’ position is remains to be seen and if they lose the battle it will go down as a gargantuan PR disaster. Theoretically, the player could find himself in limbo and out of the game altogether until his Hull deal expires in 2009.

It must be the time of year for huge rugby league stories to hit the headlines. It is just over 12 months ago that Brian Noble walked out of Odsal for Super League’s bottom team Wigan Warriors in another ground-shuddering switch.

I wonder if it’s all got Sir Alex Ferguson thinking? Didn’t Ronaldo sign a new lucrative five-year deal recently? Is that Real Madrid knocking? Where’s that pen?

• Print
• Email
• Share