It's like a throwback to the good old days of Caisley v Hetherington. Except there's only one side sounding off.

Maybe Peter Hood's silence, in response to Gary Hetherington's remarks about the Bulls "demeaning the integrity and honesty of the game" following their salary cap breach, speaks volumes about the absurdity of the claim.

The Bulls chairman won't be drawn into a slanging match with the Leeds chief executive and it is a dignified stance.

Some may say it's because Hood realises the Bulls are guilty of Hetherington's accusations. In all likelihood he simply believes it's a pointless exercise which in itself would demean the integrity of his club.

Let's look at the facts. After the Bulls, along with Wigan, were deducted two points for over-spending last year, the Rhinos supremo launched an attack at Bradford - but not the Warriors - for tarnishing the sport given they had won the title in 2005 when the breaches had actually occurred.

"It demeans the integrity and honesty of the game and everybody involved in it, and it is a disappointment for everybody concerned in rugby league," ranted Hetherington.

"The whole thing is tarnished when people are caught cheating.

"Not only did Bradford beat us in the final, they also beat St Helens in the semi-final and London and Hull in the rounds before, so everybody has got an axe to grind.

"We all know what the penalties are, and it is up to the Rugby Football League to hand out the punishments agreed by everybody. I am not one for going outside the game to take legal action in this case."

So, Bulls fans can be grateful for one thing: Hetherington won't be heading to Grattan Stadium to wrench the Super League silverware out of the club's trophy cabinet.

But he is fuming that Bradford will go down in the history books as champions while if two points had been deducted last year, when the offence was committed, there may have been a totally different outcome.

Who knows, maybe he is right, we'll never know; but because of the logistics of the salary cap and its audit, it's impossible to decipher who has flouted the rules BEFORE the campaign is over and so there's no way of imposing immediate penalties.

Consequently, Bradford find themselves apprehended ten months after their Grand Final success, to the annoyance of their bitter rivals. But the annoying aspect for Bulls fans given Hetherington's outburst must be the salient facts he seems to be overlooking - Leeds won the 2004 Grand Final with two players in their side guilty of drug offences.

Doesn't that surely demean the "integrity and honesty" of the game?

We all know Keith Senior and Ryan Bailey were only guilty of using ephedrine. They declared they had used it before testing as they had been suffering from illness and it wasn't intended to enhance performance.

They weren't banned and fined £2,200 each. Not even the most ardent Bulls fan would argue their indiscretion helped Leeds win the Grand Final, although still - nearly two years on - no-one yet knows if the drugs were in the players' systems at Old Trafford.

The vague RFL never revealed when the tests were actually taken and, if you remember, the announcement was made two days before Christmas buried under the news' of a derisory Rhinos bid for Bulls' Jamie Langley.

Back to the point. If Hetherington is going to play the whiter than white' card then, well, Leeds have to be whiter than white. And they are not.

Just as the record books say Rhinos won the title in 2004, they also say two players were banned for drug offences.

Leeds acknowledge that, just as the Bulls have acknowledged guilt of breaching the cap. However, just as Senior and Bailey had their reasons, the champions also cited mitigating circumstances.

Principally, the non-payment of insurance for Shontayne Hape's injury while on New Zealand duty and wages paid to the banned Ryan Hudson, but also the timing of a severance payment to another player which brought it into 2005 instead of this year, and a payment by one of the club's commercial suppliers to the company that owns a player's image rights was also bizarrely included on the cap.

The Bulls went out and brought Aussies Ben Harris and Ian Henderson to Odsal as replacements for Hape and Hudson, expecting to have room left on the cap. That room never materialised.

If Caisley was still running the Bulls, undoubtedly Hetherington's comments would have stoked a stringing response.

Let's face it, the pair seemed to have differing views on most things rugby league and some of their public spats proved both entertaining and enlightening. Hood though is a less robust figurehead who prefers to go about the club's business in a more sedate manner. He hasn't taken the bait.

One theory is that Hetherington kicked up such a fuss to create the illusion for Leeds fans that things aren't really that bad at their club.

Certainly, Tony Smith could do with having some of the flak deflected from his demoralised side. Overall, Hetherington's principles are correct and the sorry saga of cap breaches has painted the game in a bad light but his attack on Bradford is uncalled for.

He does want a system to be found that punishes any future discrepancies in the same season, and that is one common goal stemming from the current debate that every Super League club will agree with. Well, maybe not Wigan. They might ask for it to be instated next year!