The simplest way to show how nonsensical Sale's position is would be to ask how they would respond if any of their squad did what Solomona tried to do - retire from RU and walk away from their contract, straight to another pro team. Even more bizarrely it suggests they would be Ok with that happening if a player 'retired' from living in the north and simply left Sale and signed for an RU club in the south. The logic they are implying can only lead to that being their view.

Oddly enough, I suspect the next contracted player that wants to leave Sale won't be allowed to just walk away.

They really are the lowest of the low Sale aren't they?! It sounds like they've thrown their toys out the pram and are basically threatening to do it again if they feel like it.

Tin pot club with no support but deep pockets because of owners who clearly have no standards.

sums it up perfectly

I can kind of see his point, they were prepared to pay £200k and in the end they paid £200k.

What he's missing is that it assumes Cas should just have said ok have him and not tried to protect a contracted asset that they didn't want to sell. Likewise if Sale hadn't tapped him up he equally wouldn't have been unsettled.

Very arrogant approach by the chairman and he's just playing the schoolground bully tactic.

The only downside is the DS seems to be playing well there, would have been nice for him to have flopped

On the other hand, Solomona's replacement - who came with a bit of a damaged goods reputation has outperformed him in the try scoring dept showing which code has the greater depth of talent. I really aren't that bothered how DS goes in the inferior code because no matter how well he does there will always be a core of the yawnion press who will be there to rubbish and never accept him because of his RL background. He chose to mix with such scum so tough.

Was the offer actually genuine on on the table properly, from reading it would seem it might have being mentioned but not offered, I'm not 100% sure of that, plus wouldn't DS agent have gotten a wedge of the fees anyway?
That Sale removed the offer whatever it was) thinking they could just get DS for nowt shows you what a contemptable bunch of cretins they are.

It also ignores the fact that Solomona would never have 'retired' from RL without the offer of a contract from Sale. I doubt very much that when Solomona said he was retiring from RL he actually intended to never work again. Literally one of this would have happened if Sale hadn't tapped Solomona up in the first place.

Like I said, I await with interest the time another RU team starts talking to a contracted Sale player who then declares he has 'retired' from Sale and is ready to play for his new team the next day. Presumably Sale's owners will not only let them leave but will also throw them a lavish retirement party, complete with gold watch.

Utter gibberish from Sale.

Indeed; according to the interview, Sale's view is that if a player says he's unhappy, the right thing to do is let him go - so if one of their rivals from the lesser code taps up one of their players, he need only say he's unhappy, and they'll shrug their shoulders and release him from his contract?

In summary - they thought they could bulldoze lowly Cas, they were served with legal papers, and folded because they knew their case had little chance of success. It doesn't do anything in terms of legal precedent, but it perhaps sends a message that RL clubs are not quite the pushovers that Sale assumed.

In the aftermath of this case, RL does seem to be losing the publicity battle, with Sale (and Diamond in particular), claiming that they got their man for 5k more than the original plan and the most uncomfortable aspect of this, is that, there is nothing to prevent other players "leaving" the game in just the same unsavoury way that Solomona did.

According to Cas' lawyer, the 200K offer wasn't that at all.... it was 75K up front, 75K this September, 10K repayment for DS' loan, 20K for playing his first game for England RU and the final 20K when he amassed 10 international appearances. Sale then withdrew this offer and made a paltry 50K offer. Cas refused both of these straight away.

Sale have ended up paying 205K to Cas up front and then their own legal costs and 100K of Cas' legal costs (which is cash in hand to Cas as they have pretty much already paid their own legal costs). According to the lawyer, he estimated Sale are paying out upwards of 400K for this sorry affair.

The big thing for me is how dignified and professional everyone from the RL side of things have been whereas the RU side have been nothing short of a joke!

Sale are paying a lot but Cas aren't getting enough. It doesn't really deter a RU club if they're willing to pay ~£1m for the next best RL player does it. And they can definitely afford it.

I agree with you on this. I know we are in the era of fake news but Sale are going back further in time and adopting the old Goebbels approach of if you tell the big lie often enough then eventually some people will start believing it. I do wish the RFL were more aggressive on this. It is not libel to call someone a liar if there is evidence to back it up. Call out Sale and Diamond for what they are.

Where's this quote from mate as some cheeky er has nicked my username!!!

Someone needs to set up a Kickstarter fund raiser to entice Josh Charnley back to RL by just walking out on his Sale contract, to see if Steve Diamond still feels the same as he does now.