Paul Cooke is set to leave Hull Kingston Rovers, three years after his controversial cross-city move from Hull, and join Wakefield Wildcats on loan for the rest of the season.
Whether the deal will be completed in time for Cooke to play against his parent club in Friday’s Engage Super League fixture at Craven Park is unclear.
Cooke, who has been dropped for Rovers’ past two matches, confirmed to team-mates yesterday that he was moving to link up with John Kear, for whom Cooke, 28, played at Hull.
The stand-off will also be reunited at Belle Vue with Danny Brough, his former half-back partner at Hull, where the pair were instrumental in the 2005 Challenge Cup final defeat of Leeds Rhinos under Kear. The Wakefield head coach retained his admiration for Cooke, who scored a late try from loose forward against Leeds at the Millennium Stadium five years ago before Brough kicked the winning conversionCooke’s switch from Hull to their fierce rivals, which earned him a four-month suspension for an illegal approach to Rovers while still a contracted Hull player, caused uproar in the city. At Craven Park, he never scaled the heights he did playing for the “Black and Whites” and Hull KR had told him that he would not receive a new contract beyond this season.
While negotiations continue, Wakefield, still smarting from Saturday’s 52-0 loss at home to Huddersfield Giants, did confirm the signing of Ben Gledhill, 20, a former England Under-18 prop, who joined the Wildcats part-time over the winter.
Richard Silverwood is to referee Leeds’s league fixture away to Huddersfield on Sunday, two weeks after he was labelled “arrogant” by Keith Senior, the Rhinos centre, whose criticism of Silverwood after the World Club Challenge defeat by Melbourne Storm at Elland Road ten days ago has resulted in his appearance before an RFL tribunal tonight.
Senior, who later issued an apology for his outburst over what he saw as a failure by the referee to clamp down on Melbourne’s spoiling tactics, is charged with breaching operational rules. If found guilty, he could be suspended, but he is more likely to be fined.
Gareth Thomas, the former Wales rugby union captain, trained with Crusaders’ first-team squad for the first time yesterday. The 35-year-old remains pencilled in to make his debut against Catalans Dragons in Wrexham on Friday week. “Obviously, I’m going to start out wide because that’s where I can learn but also be involved in the game,” he said. “We’re taking things one step at a time, but I realise I have got to earn my position here.
“I’ve got to get into how the team play and that’s what I’ve got to learn first. I’m probably working harder than I have at any other stage of my career, learning something new in such a short space of time.”
Source:The Times
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