Pretty certain a UK contract carries no weight in Australia.......

Pretty certain James Segeyaro thought that too...and he ended up in the wilderness for 6 months.

Oh yes, from Dec 2016 until March 17, he was right in that wilderness...... until he signed for Cronulla at the start of the NRL season.

Leeds held all the cards then, too....

Yeah, right! Once Leeds didn’t pay him, his contact became null and void and he signed for Cronulla.
Now if Wigan want to carry on paying Hastings, they can try and claim he is their employee. But they won’t, because it’s ridiculous.
It’s just not legal for a company to force someone to work for them. It can’t be done.

Hastings doesn't turn up, then he is disciplined and fined. I seem to recall Joel Tomkins was fined, Bateman was fined and suspended, Carlos Tevez was fined by Man City for not playing. None of them had their contracts deemed null and void.

We don’t actually know when Hastings contract starts. He may not be in breach of anything if it only starts in Jan.

You can’t fine someone who doesn’t consider themselves to be an employee though.

That really is utter nonsense. Look at the quotes below. Leeds kept hold of him until they received a fair financial settlement as well as a replacement in Matt Parcell. Until that point he could go nowhere and do nothing.

“The situation with James Segeyaro has not changed, even though we have signed Matt Parcell,” Hetherington said. “James Segeyaro remains on our register and on the RFL’s register as well and he may well remain for the next two years.

He will only be off that at the expiry of his contract, ut] he remains on the transfer list and is available to anybody who makes an acceptable offer.”

Hetherington confirmed Rhinos are also pursuing a separate action against the Papua New Guinea international for breach of contract.

Segeyaro joined Rhinos on loan from Penrith Panthers in July and signed a long-term contract two months later, but declined to return from a break in Australia, saying he had been homesick during his time in Leeds.

The Rhinos chief said there is now no possibility of the two parties getting back together. “James himself, through his manager, cancelled his contract by writing to us and confirming he would not be fulfilling the remainder of his contract,” Hetherington stated.

The writing was on the wall after the grand final. All the interviews he gave you could tell he didn’t want to play for Wigan.

I believe all super league conttacts run from 1 november to 31 october,unless a player moves mid season

For me Hastings is a Wigan player until I hear otherwise from him or the club.

I'm not gonna get too worked up that he hasn't changed his Twitter bio while he's on his holidays.

Moley commented couple of hours ago that he’s probably coming but needs to sort out couple of issues in his contract. My guess is something to do with money

IF there is any mileage in this at all then we need to be looking for a replacement now.

I assume he already has a verbal deal in place with someone else for 2021 and no doubt due to player movement etcthe potential to sign early has become a reality.

He never seemed to be fully committed to the move despite signing in my opinion.

He is a fantastic player but if his head is elsewhere we need to be covering all bases to find an alternative. If we can locate a replacement then let him go.

Using a marquee spot on someone whose mind is elsewhere for me isn’t an option.

This is of course assuming there is some truth in it, which to be fair their does seem to be.