Whilst many would say that both Russell Crowe and Shane Richardson are simply suffering from a case of sour grapes, if you ask them, they believe that they are well within their merits to coax Sandow out of the deal.
In light of all this, the Souths chief Executive is refusing to concede that the deal Sandow agreed to, and signed with the Eels, is over the line.
As Richardson attempts to coax Sandow to come back, the rules state that teams have until the end of Round 13, to lodge a final counter offer for their player.
In what fans will see as a contradiction, and more signs of sour grapes, should Sandow not go back to the Bunnies and renege on his Eels deal, then Richardson demands that the deal be looked into by salary cap auditor, Ian Schubert.
This is despite the fact that the Eels have a fair bit of money to spend, highlighted by comments made by Osborne, that says the Eels are still in the market for a couple more players.
“We haven’t given up hope of re-signing Chris and we have until round 13 to try to convince him he’s better off staying at South Sydney,” Richardson said.
“We certainly haven’t signed anything agreeing to release him to Parramatta and under the current NRL rules we’re entitled to the last right of reply before his new contract can be lodged with Ian Schubert.
“If he does decide to go to Parramatta, we’ll be insisting the NRL go through normal procedure in terms of how closely Ian Schubert scrutinises the deal.
“We’ll certainly be hoping he scrutinises it as closely as he scrutinised the Greg Inglis deal.”
Due to the intricate nature of the Inglis deal, and Souths reluctance to release all the details necessary, the entire process to authenticate his deal took two months in total.
Despite all this however, Eels Chief Executive Paul Osborne maintained that the deal was all legitimate, and that Sandow has signed the contract with the Eels for four seasons.
“He has signed the deal so I’m not remotely concerned,” Osborne said.
“It’s done and dusted, his mum’s excited, Chris is excited. The matter is finalised as far as we’re concerned.”
Osborne also refused to talk about the nature of the Sandow deal, as well as the figures involved, and he remains unconcerned by the threat of Schubert coming in to look at the deal.
“I’m not concerned in the slightest,” Osborne said.
“And I’m not going to comment on figures. It’s an insult to Chris and an insult to both clubs to be throwing figures around.”