Women’s Super League Send Off 😂

[Dunbar]

42 minutes ago, Chris22 said:

A few weeks ago, the former Salford Chief Executive Officer alleged that one of the Salford owners said that she should "sleep with someone at the RFL to smooth things over".

This weekend, a York player is alleged to have said to a referee: "Which one are you shagging?".

The reaction to the former was universal condemnation and outrage. The reaction the latter was hilarity. 

Both comments are unacceptable and should be condemned. The comment not just questioning a referee's integrity. This comment was aimed at  her opponents too. And it would not have been made if women were not involved in the match. It has misogynistic undertones and the RFL should come down hard.

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with drawing parallels between the Salford incident and this one.

There is a clear and significant difference in the relationship between the parties in these two cases.

In the Salford incident, it was an owner (and therefore a superior) using manipulative language to either coerce someone into sleeping with a member of the RFL to 'smooth things over' or they made an entirely inappropriate remark. Either way, the power dynamic meant that the person in question felt that they had no choice but to leave their job.

In this incident, a player is talking back to the referee.  The referee is in charge on the field and immediately used his authority to dismiss the player. The player now faces disciplinary action. I do not believe that the Salford owner has faced any consequences. 

The language and intent of one incident was coercive and manipulative and a significant abuse of power. The language of the other, while unacceptable, was not an abuse of power and was not manipulative. 

And this is not saying the incident with the player should be lessened, more a comparison actually plays down the Salford incident as it was far worse.

[chisholm]

If this would of been a male player in the NCL to a female official I'm sure that the powers that be would be issuing a really hefty ban. Let's see how the RFL view this.

[Coggo]

Throw her into the bog! Burn her! She turned me into a newt!

[gingerjon]

8 hours ago, Dunbar said:

I'm not sure I feel comfortable with drawing parallels between the Salford incident and this one.

There is a clear and significant difference in the relationship between the parties in these two cases.

In the Salford incident, it was an owner (and therefore a superior) using manipulative language to either coerce someone into sleeping with a member of the RFL to 'smooth things over' or they made an entirely inappropriate remark. Either way, the power dynamic meant that the person in question felt that they had no choice but to leave their job.

In this incident, a player is talking back to the referee.  The referee is in charge on the field and immediately used his authority to dismiss the player. The player now faces disciplinary action. I do not believe that the Salford owner has faced any consequences. 

The language and intent of one incident was coercive and manipulative and a significant abuse of power. The language of the other, while unacceptable, was not an abuse of power and was not manipulative. 

And this is not saying the incident with the player should be lessened, more a comparison actually plays down the Salford incident as it was far worse.

Indeed. The reaction to the Salford incident described - and, indeed, to the allegations raised prior to Wood's return but dealt with neither before or since that happy incident - show that RL enjoys a fair bit of 1970s working men's club banter without having any issue. I disagree with the RFL on that and think such attitudes hold us back in many ways in the real world fifty years on from that happy Yew Tree time.

OTOH, we have always had a reasonably low tolerance of backchat to the ref and, specifically, questioning the ref's integrity. This is both. And should absolutely not be tolerated or brushed off.

Still waiting for someone to genuinely believe the biggest issue is that it's unladylike. That was a fun post tor read.

[JohnM]

3 hours ago, Coggo said:

Throw her into the bog! Burn her! She turned me into a newt!

She turned me into a newt!

But that was years ago. Time to let it go.

Edited September 2 by JohnM

[RP London]

17 hours ago, Damien said:

I agree. It lacks an apology for me and the word sorry, or similar, should definitely be in there.

To be fair to the statement it does say that "Sinead expressed genuine remorse immediately for the comment and understands the serious nature of the situation". While its a but clumsy and I don't overly like the rest of the statement I think there is a bit of "sorry" about this.  

The one thing I've noticed with press releases from clubs and the RFL is that they try and be a little clever with language and it doesn't work, simple and to the point is the best way to do it, good PR and Comms people tend to get this.

[RP London]

1 hour ago, JohnM said:

But that was years ago. Time to let it go.

1944 to be fair... which is about 20 years in the future in Cas (that's a joke BTW)

[Damien]

1 hour ago, RP London said:

To be fair to the statement it does say that "Sinead expressed genuine remorse immediately for the comment and understands the serious nature of the situation". While its a but clumsy and I don't overly like the rest of the statement I think there is a bit of "sorry" about this.  

The one thing I've noticed with press releases from clubs and the RFL is that they try and be a little clever with language and it doesn't work, simple and to the point is the best way to do it, good PR and Comms people tend to get this.

Remorse is not an apology though. It's more guilt and regret for what you have done. An apology is much more directed towards someone else.

[RP London]

17 minutes ago, Damien said:

Remorse is not an apology though. It's more guilt and regret for what you have done. An apology is much more directed towards someone else.

Expressing that remorse could easily have been a private apology to the ref afterwards. As I say its not a well written response, if she did i think it would be useful to have in here but, again, I think RL is lacking in this department at every level. Almost all the statements you see are pretty poorly put together using language that doesn't really work but its as if "ooh its a long/intelligent sounding word" is more important than getting the information across accurately and succinctly. I find similar in a lot of interviews where "whom" "ourselves" and "myself" etc are used far too often and more often than not incorrectly, Rimmer was a devil for it IIRC.

Edited September 2 by RP London

[JohnM]

...

And we never did get an answer from the ref.

[Simon Hall]

Well it's got people talking about the women's game, I can't remember ever seeing a thread get to 5 pages for a start. 

Maybe the next generation might see the viral video of a sport they never knew existed and want to know more.

Every cloud and all that.

[RP London]

12 minutes ago, Simon Hall said:

Well it's got people talking about the women's game, I can't remember ever seeing a thread get to 5 pages for a start. 

Maybe the next generation might see the viral video of a sport they never knew existed and want to know more.

Every cloud and all that.

Except, of course, the other code is getting loads of attention at the moment and mostly very positive around the players, the camaraderie, the tik tok pratting about posts that kids seem to like so much these days (but seem inane to me).. If you want positive role models there is a tonne coming through social media in the other code at the moment..  

[RigbyLuger]

The question then is what are we doing as a sport ahead of the potential LLS decider on Friday?

[Gav Wilson]

Grade E and a trip to the tribunal then.

A minimum 6 game ban seems a bit much in a 14 game season. Maybe the thresholds needs to be adjusted a little bit for the ladies game from 2026 onwards.

[RigbyLuger]

No time for the strategic review to think about that at the moment.

[Damien]

1 hour ago, Gav Wilson said:

Grade E and a trip to the tribunal then.

A minimum 6 game ban seems a bit much in a 14 game season. Maybe the thresholds needs to be adjusted a little bit for the ladies game from 2026 onwards.

Yep, bans should definitely be in proportion to the length of the women's season. A 14 game season is more or less half the men and the ban should reflect that.

[sam4731]

59 minutes ago, Damien said:

Yep, bans should definitely be in proportion to the length of the women's season. A 14 game season is more or less half the men and the ban should reflect that.

I'm fine with general bans being relative to the length of the season but I think with things like this, no one can complain when they get the book thrown at them. A lot of what gets you banned normally is often accidental, hard to avoid or just a mistake but this incident was fully within her control.

[langpark]

3 hours ago, Gav Wilson said:

Grade E and a trip to the tribunal then.

A minimum 6 game ban seems a bit much in a 14 game season. Maybe the thresholds needs to be adjusted a little bit for the ladies game from 2026 onwards.

6 games is good.  Any time there is ref abuse in the male game, there is always an outcry of "nobody wants to ref anymore because of the abuse" and rightly so.  I cannot understand why people are reacting differently on this one.  Whether it was a "funny" comment or not is irrelevant.

[Gav Wilson]

16 minutes ago, langpark said:

6 games is good.  Any time there is ref abuse in the male game, there is always an outcry of "nobody wants to ref anymore because of the abuse" and rightly so.  I cannot understand why people are reacting differently on this one.  Whether it was a "funny" comment or not is irrelevant.

No arguments from me about Sinead copping a ban at all. 

I'm just questioning the length of ban in context of the length of the ladies season, compared to the mens.

I'm not even suggesting that Sinead cops a smaller ban, I'm suggesting that the thresholds are looked at for 2026 and beyond.

[DEANO]

1 hour ago, langpark said:

6 games is good.  Any time there is ref abuse in the male game, there is always an outcry of "nobody wants to ref anymore because of the abuse" and rightly so.  I cannot understand why people are reacting differently on this one.  Whether it was a "funny" comment or not is irrelevant.

If you got 6 game ban in the men’s game that would equate to about a fifth of the season. In the ladies it’s roughly half 

[RigbyLuger]

What did Ben Reynolds say to Tara Jones?

[LeeF]

13 hours ago, RigbyLuger said:

What did Ben Reynolds say to Tara Jones?

The charge is foul & abusive which would indicate words that won’t get through this Forum’s swear filter aimed directly at her.

As a rule they don’t usually put the actual words in the charge or they minutes

[RBKnight]

13 hours ago, RigbyLuger said:

What did Ben Reynolds say to Tara Jones?

"Who's Ollie Salmon shagging at St Helens?" ?

[Griff]

14 hours ago, RigbyLuger said:

What did Ben Reynolds say to Tara Jones?

Nothing. The touch judge took the hit.

[Sports Prophet]

On 31/08/2025 at 19:16, sentoffagain2 said:

  In the heat of the game you can't always control your feelings.

You would say that  

Edited September 5 by Sports Prophet