Who's RB?

RB is Reading Bullette a regular poster on the T & A website on most Bulls stories

There are little bits of Caisley's letter which I agree with. But it cannot be denied that it misses alot of vital information out.

Is it just me who had a tiny thought that Caisley might be interested in taking over again after reading this?

While he ignores the bigger questions I can't see him being able to do any better with the club than the current blokes running it. Caisley was never a sugar daddy and until we get one we are where we are.

When he ran the club he had the stadium costs covered by the the council, large amounts of Sky money and after that large amounts of council settlement money. Once all that had gone so was he.

He has a point about the pretty abysmal recruitment record the club has in the past 5 years but part of that must be put into a context of a club with rapidly decreasing amounts of money. The reasons for that can be largely traced to decisions made when Caisley was chairman (even if Hood was a director of the board at the time so also bears some responsibility).

In short, the club's current set up has made mistakes and could do better but they do operate in a much tougher environment than that Caisley had to cope with. For him to whinge about the way things are now and see no fault in himself speaks volumes for his opinion of himself.

Thats the bit about what he's said that annoys me. He still wont admit that the harris deal has any bearing on the situation we are now in. He hasn't done himself any favours with todays outburst IMO.

And complaining about quality of signings when he actively touted our best player overseas whilst still under contract to line his own pocket leaves a bad taste too.

CC acted as agent for the payers, I'd suggest he had a very powerful influence, especially when you factor in the fact (which I assume you agree with?) that you can't keep a player who doesn't want to stay and it is a wast of time to try and enforce contracts in that situation. I don't, btw, [iblame[/i Caisley for that, he was acting in a private capacity as agent for the player so did his duty to the player, and no doubt his fee, by acting as he did, but to pretend he bears no responsibility is risible.

Your statement about the 'the thirty odd year old half who didn't want to be here' is total nonsense btw (I assume you mean Orford?), he was only here for a few months so I think it's fair to assume he [idid[/i actually want to be here for the first season, even if it ended, in injury, in May. There is no doubt his leaving (we were 4th, at the time, remember) ended any hopes we had, and then I've no doubt whatever, all the shilly shallying and lie telling emanating from down under at the end of the season killed our chances of getting a 'quality' half installed for the next season season. I count two seasons directly affected.

The only 'fact' is that they were contracted to the Bradford Bulls and what is nonsense is your understanding of a 'contract'. It is not only not a waste of time to enforce contracts it is essential if you do not want a queue of players forming at your door who have been told by agents they can earn more elsewhere despite being contracted to the club. Your understanding of a 'contract' means that we are obliged to pay poor and/or injured players until their contract expires whilst those who want to cancel their contracts when it suits them can do so. In Sam and George's case it appears we have recieved little in the way of compensation. This has laso led to speculation regarding Tom. Any player is seen as a potential target because the club will not stand behind its own contract (Andy Lynch). This is catastrophic in any business but doubly so in professional sport. Orford and George Mimmis knew what they were dealing with when they up against Bradford Bulls.

On Orford, the nonsense really is that the club started the season with one halfback having failed to recruit or develop a successor to Paul Deacon and Iestyn Harris over the previous two seasons. I remember we were 4th and I remember where we finished the season and who played 6 and 7 for most of the remainder. Chris Cailsey's fault? Hardly!

What I'm perplexed about is the way he makes Peter and Ryan out to be the baddies for the decline.

I know many of our supporters don't give the current management the credit they so richly deserve for first and foremost ensuring that we still have a club to support in these most difficult of times.

I'm ceratin we would have gone under had Caisley still been at the helm post 2006 and it's for the best when I think about that Peter Hood held up his hand and came onboard to steady a very much off course ship from the waters/waves of financial oblivion.

I do however get a sneaking suspicion Ethan (based on very little evidence before anyone starts) that he's trying to get back into the supporters good books over his past comments made about them/us.

Could 2013 be 1989 all over again I wonder?

More to the point, why the hell did he feel the need to wade in with his "Open Letter" rant attacking the present administration, when the original T&A piece effectively made Leeds out to be the bad guys and most responders were playing hell at Leeds and Hetherington!

A cynic might certainly wonder if these are not the opening shots in a campaign to try and wrest control -maybe on the assumptions (which may be näive ones) that the club cannot last much longer if it turns in more results like 2010 and the assets could be picked up from an Administrator free of liabilities? Although such an arrogant rant, totally lacking in any humility and with not the slightest admission of any historic responsibility, would hardly be likely to endear him to most of the more clued-up fans who how have a much better understanding of what went on financially and otherwise?

Good job I'm not a cynic or conspiracy theorist, eh?

Got to be careful here - af

See above - af

As far as I can recall in the occaisional talk with Bulls management that is correct! and most of what I know on this wasn't via Stuart.

I really urge people to be very very very careful on this subject, unless you have clear proof. If it was to be true (and I make no comment on that one way or the other), it would be a real game-changer as far as some people's perception of Caisley was concerned, so its probably not the sort of thing that you'd want to allege lightly? Or not have the facts quite right?

I took the approach of asking (in my list of questions to CC) just how much about the "interlocking agreements" he and the club knew about and had seen when Harris was signed, and speculated on the differing consequences for our subsequent defence depending on just how much was known if they knew less, or more.

I Agree Adey but as far as I know that this is correct, the other snippet I also remember was that if Caisley had waited 6 more weeks Harris would have been totally free of any obligation to the Whinos, again if true this really puts him on the back foot and being a Solicitor he should have read the small print!