Not likely judging by the mouth foaming on the wire and saints boards in particular , practically organizing a lynching over there .

Hardaker on twitter

"Thankyou everyone for ur support, 5 games it is. You live and learn and that's life, so I'll just make sure I come out better for it."

.....now when he says he's going to "come out" is he being homophobic again?? Ban him for another 5!!!

Harsh ban for a comment you've heard blokes say a billion times before between them.

Who called Zak homophobic?

You won't see any of those twunts on here I'll bet.
Zak has accepted the punishment and will come out a better person for it. Onwards!

You. You said he was guilty of homophobia.

Use your mouse and your eyes and read the threads. I'm not your interpreter.

i didnt, i said that he used a homophobic slur and the RFL have banned him for homophobic abuse. I never said Hardaker himself, was a homophobe.

What we saw was lots of fog-knitting from those desperate to defend him that the words he used werent homophobic which doesnt quite tally with a 5 match ban for homophobic abuse.

you presented the claim, you present your evidence.

I didnt see many, if any, call Hardaker a homophobe.

Problem for me is the validity of that apology (to Monaghan) when the independent findings state:

"The tribunal accepted that the player is not homophobic but were satisfied that the remarks were made to the match official"

So did he get any extra ban for getting a carefully crafted apology drawn up, in an effort to show contrition, that was now found to be b*ll ?

No, but I think its worth recognising that an independent panel were satisfied that he'd made the remarks to the referee, and this wasn't reflected in the "apology" which was, perhaps, deliberately misleading.

I'd rather people were sincere and honest with their apologies.

Let's hope that Zak returns to focussing on being the very good player that he is.

If you're using an RFL disciplinary panel as an arbiter of fact, you're on dodgy ground.

5 games is a disgrace. You can risk ending a players career and get less games.

Yet another microcosm for the soft mollycoddled society we've reared over the last generation.

I blame the rfl

Hardakers a martyr