Albert Kelly

Quote: Chris71 "Or possibly that Smailes/Hull Daily Mail were actually being professional and not just cheap hacks. They will have needed to verify the info & get approval regarding the Kelly situation with it being something brought up on social media and didnt get the socks out and work themselves into a frenzy like some have on this matter. Where as the Cas player is involved in helping the Police therefore much easier and quicker to verify the information as genuine etc.'"

I think local papers are in a difficult position in fairness - they're reliant on the clubs for stories, but in the modern era clubs are much less reliant on the papers for publicity, with their own websites and social media presence. There are a few cases in football of local papers being banned from clubs, where the two have not seen eye-to-eye. Obviously the Yorkshire Post, (national) Daily Mail and Aussie press don't have to worry about Hull FC's attitude to them so much.

Approval might not quite be the right word, but the HDM will be keen to maintain both a good working relationship [iand[/i their independence - which will be a tricky balance. While they've reported Rovers stuff more fully in the past, we don't know the extent to which Rovers 'approved' that approach. There may well be stories about Rovers players that they took the editorial decision not to cover as well - and in the absence of something like a video flying around on social media, we never knew.

The slightly strange thing with this is that everybody who cared knew, so there couldn't be a meaningful cover up, only the appearance of an incompetent attempt at one. Rather than verifying the details, they could have just written a brief story with caveats, and a 'we've approached Hull FC for comment'. While Smailes' RL orientation isn't in any doubt, the simplest explanation is probably that they struggled to get their ducks in a row with the club over a weekend and made a bit of a bum of it as a result.