Dave T

Changing this question round a bit, what would people's thoughts be if there was a request to postpone all RL games for a period of 1mnth during the tournament?

The winners do get rewarded, with prize money and trophies. It is unlikely that you will finish bottom year on year if you have a decent stadium and money. If you do, crowds will drop, sponsorship will drop, your ratings each time will be reduced, and if teams are then proving themselves to be stronger in the lower division, they will take your place. 'It's killed football'. No it hasn't. It hasn't killed sport, and won't do. When I go watching an RL game, I see two teams playing a brilliant game on the field. There have always been off-field politics, right back to 1895.

Again, you are ignoring other words around the word prevent. It says 'best endeavours to prevent'. Did they make an announcement before the game. Do they do that at every game so that it becomes engrained? Do they have the Respect policy in the matchday programme? Personally I would suspect that they would have these things in place, especailly after the issues last year, but the Judge and RFL clearly feel that they didn't do enough. I'm sure recommendations will be made, and that will be interesting.

Yep, apologies I just skim read it. The fact is the RFL press release doesn't seem to link in with Findlay's comments. Interestingly, in his release he says that the club did everything they could on the day, what about after the day and the inquiry that will have taken place. As for the Warrington point, if the club had done everything then I would be annoyed, but the fact is that people are showing blind loyalty to the club. There was an inquiry, and if the guilty charge is wrong, then they will rightly win the appeal. Was their an appeal for names after the incident? I have gone through the archives on the Cas site and can't even find the press release after the original incident now. If they had done absolutely everything they could to firstly control the crowd, and secondly conduct a full inquiry, then the RFL could have easily given them a

Cheers, however that is just Richard Wright's wording rather than any official judgement. They are expected to receive the judgement by the end of the week, and that certainly isn't how the RFL have worded it in their official press release. Quite disappointed with the attitude of some of the Cas fans on the other site. The vast majority are refusing to blame the fans, and aiming their anger at the RFL with a couple at Gareth Thomas. I can genuinely say that if Wire got done for this kind of thing, I would be angry firstly with the dickheads who chanted, and secondly to the club for not doing all they could to resolve the issue.

From the RFL website: Castleford were found guilty of unacceptable behaviour, of breaching the RFL

Paul, with all due respect there is no reason to lock the thread. Not every thread can be about the nice things in RL. This is very relevant, and will probably get much more press than anything else happening in league for the next few weeks, so we should be able to debate it.

So doesn't this go back to the point about whether you have read the reason why they have been done? They haven't been done because the fans shouted something vile, they have been done because of their shoddy response to it. The tribunal was chaired by his Honour Judge Rodney Grant, who criticised the club for failing to take steps to stop the homophobic chanting, for failing to identify the perpetrators, for failing to challenge the chanting and for their failure to undertake a meaningful inquiry afterwards So they were criticised for failing to take steps to stop it (did they make an announcement there and then? did the stewards act on this?). They have been criticised for failing to identify the perpetrators (it is very common for fans to be highlighted now by either CCTV, public appeals, strong stewarding etc.)/ They have been criticised for failing to challenge the chanting (linked to point 1) They have been criticised for not undertaking a meaningful inquiry. They haven't simply been done because their fans chanted some stuff, it was their inadequacy to deal with the issue. Had they proven they had dealt with this strongly, I suspect no more than a suspended sentence, although that is only my opinion. You are focusing on the fact that they couldn't prevent this happening, yet most of the criticism from the Judge is aimed at Cas' responseonce it did happen.

Are you suggesting that there is only one level of abuse and offensiveness? If I was at a RL match and called James Graham a 'Ginger Scouser' (obviously from my seat where he can't see me!), and then turn and call a handicapped girl at the front a 'f*cking *******' that they are the same thing because they are both abuse? It is absolute nonsense. EDIT: just in case some found my terminology offensive.

I don't personally know what action Cas took at the time, the comments on here seemed to suggest that it was other fans who actually shut them up as opposed to anything the club did, although I cannot confirm that. Surely an announcement (ideally before it happened - I know my club certainly make announcements in place before and during the match) and then perhaps a visible presence of stewards in that area. Nobody would necessarily have to be ejected, as you say, this could be difficult, however making an announcement there and then that this is not acceptable, and putting a line of stewards in front of this small section of crowds would demonstrate that the club were taking this seriously. For anybody that was there, did anything like this happen?

I think we always knew that this was going to be an issue at the back end of the season, and it was one of the down-sides of franchising for me, but then there were always going to be pros and cons. When we moved to Summer we pretty much killed off proper tours, I miss them, but I wouldn't move back to winter just for them. You need to weigh up all the pros and cons rather than look misty-eyed at individual features.

Wigan do seem to have some very good ideas, not sure how succesful each one is, but personally I would receommend your club sets up a meeting with the other local clubs in the area who have grown their crowds this year (Wigan, Wire and Saints have all done so). I like the fact that on Wigan's website they give details of most of their promotion, whereas much of the work that Warrington do seems to be kept quiet in this area. Sometimes the crowd is just higher for no apparent reason! Wigan have a lot of group packages which I think are a great idea, they have all sorts of discounted packages for certain numbers. They have packages where the kids can go pitchside during the warmup, or can hold the hands of the players as they enter the field. Some very impressive packages. They have also done something whereby the person who purchases the most tickets for a certain game gets a free season ticket for next year. Something like that may encourage people to drag their families along, and perhaps you could reward anybody who buys over 10 tickets at once.

Yep, personally I don't see any reason why they would be any harsher on Cas than any other team. It's worth pointing out that

Of course pre-emptive action can be taken. Announcements can be made warning fans of the consequences of foul and abusive language, homophobic or racist chanting.

Warrington used to get a little stick for making various announcements before and during the game about the HJ being a community stadium etc. This was usually followed by the away following singing 'W*nky W*nky'. Whilst this didn't necessarily stop all foul chanting, it did absolutely send out the message that the club does not accept it. Compare this to Saints, who had a fair few comments about Sky turning the volume down on their fans foul chants, and you heard nothing from their club. That said, foul language is different to homophobic or racist chanting, and whilst foul language can be offensive, I don't believe 'W*nkers' are an often oppressed or victimised group of people.

Maybe, but when you look at the list of 3's he would still have to be near the top.

Personally I just hope that by season they were referring to the 8 week period and that he may be back for the playoffs.

Yep, especially when the 'standard' is Clubb, Smith and a second-rower. The Ireland thing is the one thing I have agreed with Mr Posh about in this thread, although it is up to the governing bodies to put a stop to this farcical situation now.

Apologies, missed Gleeson, thought it was strange he was left off the list.

Fair enough it's your opinion, but I just find it strange that you couldn't find any actual number threes knocking around in the game that are better than him and doing it week in week out. The one that is up there is Gleeson and you don't even mention him. We saw how good Lee Smith was at 3 in that 40m destruction at the DW.

Is this serious? So when asked for a list of players who you would put at 3 ahead of Bridge, you go with: Pryce J Tomkins Clubb Smith Watkins Briscoe Most of those players don't even play right centre, yet you would have them in ahead of a player who has made that position his own and has had a couple of decent games for England in that position already.

Yep, wouldn't think twice about puting Gleeson back in there. Like with Pryce, we shouldn't just be resigning players to the scrap heap just because they have lost their spot once. We simply don't have enough quality players to be able to do that.

He is England's current Number 3, and anything that weakens our options in the backs is a blow IMO.