Leeds employ rugby players, if you're no good at that then everything else is academic.

Balance of risk and reward.

Yeah and if you shoulder charged a junior auditor you'd get sacked whereas a RL player would get a 1 or 2 match ban........utterly pointless comparing "normal" jobs to those who play professional sports such are the differences.

If zak plays on Friday, I'll be cheering him on and the rest of lads, if some don't want to that's up to them. I know he's done wrong and he's been punished! I don't look at the world in black and white like some, I'm not naive enough to think thing was a simple unprovoked assault, there will be many details we will probably never know about the night in question. It has been dealt with and its time to move on.

Care to expand on that comment as I have no idea what you are getting at?
Are you questioning what I was asking the Club would do in this situation or questioning what in my opinion I would do?

Two Words.

Dews Fest.

The infamous drinking pastime of a few of those names above. Senior describes them pretty bluntly in his book. See how far you could push a pub landlord / punters etc before you get kicked out. Happily erradicated by Mr T Smith as head coach.

I think the crux of the argument is that the above were not daft enougn to do their shennanigans in places where they would be easily filmed and or reported to a large extent.

Having thought about it, although I think he's an idiot for doing what he's done I'm not sure what sacking him would achieve? ATEOTD sport is a results business and to get results your team needs to include players of exceptional talent in order to be successful. Sacking him so Wigan or Warrington could sign him doesn't make sense to me, and no matter how much some fans may feel agrieved about their team employing a criminal at the moment, I'm sure it will all be forgotten about if he contines to play well and Leeds win games.

I lived in the US for roughly 8 years. When I came back I got a temp job working overnight stocking in a supermarket. Most of the people who I worked with were really sound. I was very impressed by the organisation of the work and all the employees I witnessed. The company was one of the biggest in the country. As far as I could see it had spot on policies and did everything the right way.

I think the night manager was a sound bloke. I did however get the vibe that he didn't go home at the end of a shift to female company. It wasn't anything concrete, it was just something about him. Doesn't bother me, none of my business. I did overhear a couple of women speculating if he was that way.

Anyway, one of the senior workers, seemed like a good lad, hard worker, joker, seems like a nice man and someone to turn to if you needed to know something. He's a bit loud and shares his jokes with half the building. He's shouting across to one of his buddies about being a bender or something. It's fairly clear that he's just joking and absolutely no one takes any offence. I simply cannot believe that management weren't fully aware of that kind of joking.

Having lived in the US for so long, I was a little bit shocked by it. I should say this was my first few days, so obviously everything was new. I asked one of the guys about the joking and it difficult because I was asking about the homophobic offence aspect while he was not getting it and just thought it was normal joking and didn't understand how anyone would feel otherwise.

Just thinking back, I'm actually reminded of when I worked in the US as an unloader. I'm reminded of the fact that 75% of the taunting between them was of the homophobic variety. I only worked as an unloader for a couple of months because I hated those guys (they were generally ok, just loud and I'm really not a team player).

When I came back to England I had missed Zak's first homphobic insult, so I missed all the fuss. I was here though for him blowing the kiss.

IMO the reaction to homophobia is a complete and utter twitter and TV scandal that goes on unchecked in the vast majority of manual labour jobs. IMO Zak's a real world working class guy working in a macho, BS talking environment. The only problem with Zak is that his world collides with twitter and the utter liars who run TV. I doubt there's many players who really gave a crap about what he said, they were just glad that they weren't the ones who were caught on TV.

While I'm on a roll I want to make a point about the times we live in. In 1999 the ex Arsenal football player Graham Rix was arrested for having sex with a 15 year old girl. She was a willing participant from what I gather, she looked way older, she went to his hotel to be with him. From what I heard her father went to his football club to complain what had happened. It's speculated he was trying to either get some cash, or get him sacked, who knows? Anyway the football club chairman, a man very popular among LUFC supporters I think, asked WTF he was coming to him for and told him to go to the cops if he had a problem. Go to the cops is what he did. Rix got a year inside I think.

I had a conversation with my girlfriend about this at the time. My opinion was that despite the age gap, he was around 50 I think, if she wanted it it was barely deserving of being a crime. I understood why the courts have to act if a complaint is made from a parent, but unless someone complained no one would have made any fuss about it.

But in 2015 the world has changed. In the US I've seen people being called out as paedo's if a 20 year old guy is hanging around with a 17 year old girl. I think we are in utterly mental times

Recently a 27 year old footballer has been arrested for the same offence as Rix. He is looking at the end of his career if he's convicted and the world is going to castigate him as a kiddie fiddler.

IMO kiddie fiddlers deserve to be killed. Rapists deserve to be killed. Genuine paeodophiles need help and removing away from children so they are never a danger to them. But the crime of having sex with a very willing 15 year old is still barely a crime. But he's going to be painted as a rapist and a kiddie fiddler for the rest of his life.

Whatever anyone thinks of what's happened, come Friday, if hardaker has that rhinos shirt on I'll support him just as much as the rest of the team!

IMO anyone that doesn't and claims to want the best for our club is talking rubbish, because whatever you think nobody can deny we are a far better team with hardaker in it! FACT!

Especially people that have supported the likes of Bailey, Walker, Morley, McDermott etc in the past.

Apparently no charge was brought (although guilty of the assault). Because both players agreed to pay £200 compensation plus a letter of apology. This was an easy way out, as the student would be rubbing his hands at the prospect of receiving £400 easy money for a few bruises. This is purely a way of reducing court time, as both would have had cases to answer.
If I were Leeds I would keep his registration, but not play him so that he could not be head-hunted, he would be out of the limelight and children could not idolise him, and it would show Leeds in a good community light.
There would be no loss of class as that lad Ashton Golding who played against Warrington looked a top notch recruit, had a real good game.

Well, that escalated quickly.