Quote number 6="number 6", most sensible people would tell its [ua set up[/u but still no excuse for his actions'"
It’s possible.
But if it is the case, it seems most likely to be an opportunistic one. Kelly doesn’t seem know the targets of his abuse, so I doubt they had spent the evening buying him drinks. And, while it’s possible his belligerence is a reaction to provocation, he chooses his own words.
On the other hand, it’s possible, from what we’ve seen, that the recording starts not when Kelly starts being abusive, but because he is being abusive in the first place. Is there anyway we can tell from the footage whether it starts at somebody pressing record or has been edited to remove earlier footage? Genuine question. Even then it could just be that the earlier stuff was relatively boring. E.g. they started filming a wobbly drunk AK, and that was what provoked him.
Increasingly the bigger story, imo, is the Hull Daily Mail’s failure to report on it. I’m not for one moment drawing a direct morale equivalence between this omission, glaring as it is, and Kelly’s behaviour. There might be a good reason for it and the good reason might need to remain secret e.g. if somebody involved is in a vulnerable place right now and they don’t want to risk making it worse. However, if it genuinely is as James Smailes (of the HDM) apparently characterised it last night, that’d be pretty poor.
Hull FC can cite the need to conduct an investigation still. But if they don’t ultimately put out even a minimalist statement clarifying the situation or expressing regret and noting his behaviour was not in line with the club’s values, that’d be beyond pathetic, imo.
