St Helens criticise 'short-term' bid to keep hooker

The St Helens chairman, Howard Morris, has described the Rugby League's attempts to raise outside finance to keep Keiron Cunningham in the game as a short-term fix.

The Rugby Football League has been secretly setting up a ground-breaking sponsorship deal that they believe will persuade the Great Britain hooker to reject the overtures of Swansea and the Welsh Rugby Union.

''We've never wanted to lose him and if this meant he stayed in rugby league we would welcome it, but it depends on what Keiron wants to do,'' Morris said.

''Even if it works, it's only a short-term measure. The game needs to get itself organised at international level, because that is what the players feel they are missing.''

By retaining Cunningham, Morris believes the game would be ''putting a finger in the dyke'', but predicts problems in the likely reaction from other clubs.

"The first thing that would happen is that Maurice Lindsay would want the same sort of help to keep Kris Radlinski at Wigan," he said.

Saints have rejected a number of joint approaches from Swansea and the WRU for Cunningham. "The offers have been completely inadequate, especially compared with what Leeds have been offered for Iestyn Harris," Morris said.

"We have told them to come back with another offer and to come back sooner rather than later, because we want this resolved one way or the other."

Morris denies the suspicion of some of their supporters that the actual agenda of St Helens is to cash in on Cunningham. ''If we had wanted to do that, we could have done it a long time ago,'' he added. ''But there comes a time when, if a player wants to go and he has 18 months left on his contract, you have to consider it."