Quote Mild mannered Janitor="Mild mannered Janitor"The key difference between This situation and the Paul Cooke situation is that Cooke and Hull had already started acting under the contractual terms.
McDonnall will have been under his original contract upto the end of October.
Verbal agreements are difficult to enforce. Take the example of the NRL player who was left paralysed recently, Alex McKinnon. The NRL were quoted as offering him a job for life. Now I am sure the NRL will not actually want to make McKinnon work in to his 90's., yet in theory by the letter of the quote that's what could happen should McKinnon accept.
A term of phrase can easily be misinterpreted in the eyes of the law.'"

in employment law job for life would mean until std retirement age, whatever that happens to be for each given country.
As it is It's a gobe statement made by another gobe organisation just to make them out to be the good guys in all of this. it is their lack of ensuring that officials stop players before this type of event happens or at the very least harsh punishments on/off field so that it makes players think what they are doing, heat of combat or not.
There are rules of engagement in war, rugby players should be no different. The NRL (& RFL to a lesser extent in other areas) are nothing short of being culpable for injuries like this, the way it lets the tip tackle/tackle between the legs go on game after game without a word being said. The result is a player lucky just to be paralysed.