LUKE GALE’S return to Leeds Rhinos ahead of the 2020 Super League season was a homecoming for the veteran halfback.
After a tremendous five-year spell with Castleford Tigers – where he won the Man of Steel in 2017 and helped the club reach their first-ever Grand Final – Gale returned to his boyhood side.
Having failed to play a game first time around, Gale would go on to play 29 games for the Rhinos before an apparent falling out with then Leeds head coach Richard Agar saw the 36-year-old stripped of his captaincy in July 2021 before an exit followed just two years into his three-year contract at Headingley.
Gale would link up with Hull FC for 2022, but having guided Leeds to a Challenge Cup success in 2020, his controversial exit from the West Yorkshire club shocked a number of people.
Now Gale’s agent, Craig Harrison of Show Me The Money UK, has revealed just what went on between Gale and Agar.
“It certainly wasn’t Luke’s fault,” Harrison said on The Full Eighty Minutes podcast.
“Because he was that dominant, and Rich wanted to be that dominant and so the clash happened.
“It was two personalities, I think Rich said ‘I’m the boss here’ and the lads were looking towards Galey. I think there was that clash.
“I think Rich always thought Galey would question and challenge everything and with being a new coach, he was the one player that he perhaps couldn’t afford to clash with but it probably had to turn out that way because he was that player.
“It happened in 24 hours, he phoned me and said ‘I’ve just been told to leave training’ and as an agent you pick that phone up and then I’m trying to phone Leeds to see how bad it was.
“Within 48 hours, it’s worse than you thought. Luke said he thought he was being constructive.”
Gale enjoyed his testimonial game for his last club Wakefield Trinity earlier this year, as Daryl Powell’s men ran out 32-8 winners against Castleford.