Acessing control in Page_Load of normal user control results

I'm trying to implement a menu where I can dynamically add a form to one of the menus as apposed to the regular sub menus. The rest of the menus will have sub menus.

The following is the Ascx code:

and here is the CS:

After adding this to the toolbox and then dropping it on the page and viewing the resulting page I get the following error: (Note: This happens whether I use the Telerik control or just a plain ASP.net textbox)
Server Error in '/' Application.
Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during
the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace
for more information about the error and where it originated in the
code.
Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

Source Error:
Line 12: protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
Line 13:
Line 14: MajorRadMenu.ItemDataBound += new Telerik.Web.UI.RadMenuEventHandler(MajorRadMenu_ItemDataBound);
Line 15:
Line 16:
Source File: f:\Projects\Xpo\Branches\Dev\Applications\Xpo.Website\Xpo.BounceLogistics.Web\Widgets\Navigation\MajorMenu.ascx.cs    Line: 14
Stack Trace:
[NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.]
Bounce.Web.Widgets.Navigation.MajorMenu.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) in f:\Projects\Xpo\Branches\Dev\Applications\Xpo.Website\Xpo.BounceLogistics.Web\Widgets\Navigation\MajorMenu.ascx.cs:14
System.Web.Util.CalliEventHandlerDelegateProxy.Callback(Object sender, EventArgs e) +51
System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) +92
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +54
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +145
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +145
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +145
System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() +145
System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +772
Version Information: Microsoft .NET Framework Version:4.0.30319; ASP.NET Version:4.0.30319.18033

Not sure what we're doing wrong here?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
EDIT: We've added this user control directly to the master page and it works perfectly. So it only fails when we try to add it to the toolbox of Sitefinity

Thanks,
Jacques

Hello,

I have placed the code on a user control locally and I did not receive the Object reference.. error. However it is advisable to use the SitefinitySitemapDataSource instead for data source of the RadMenu. Additionally when binding RadMenu to a SitemapDataSource the server side ItemClicked event will not fire - take a look at the following article for more information. Try out the markup below:

And code:

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavel Benov
the Telerik team