Does Zak Smoke?

How do we know he was not saying he was desperate for a flipping cigarette, in more colloquial terms?

Maybe I'm not up with youth slang these days but last time I heard that particular word was used in that way was by Warren Oats in a 1970's Sam Peckinpah movie.

Maybe young Zak had just found out he was having [url=http://mrbrains.co.uk/these[/url for the forth time that week and wan't happy about it?

Faggots and peas! Is that still considered a traditional Sunday lunch over Castleford way?

The faggot family of the week look well pleased though

The incident is being officially investigated by the RFL.

If Hardaker has used such language, it needs to be stamped out.

Im not sure what punishment would be the correct one. The reason why we would punish him is to send out a message that the game is inclusive to everyone. Is a ban the best way to do that? I think, if Hardaker was amenable some public statements and work with the LGBT community might be a better way to address this.

May as well do both - some work with that community will help reduce his ignorance and hopefully a bit more sensitive and careful in the future. A ban will also teach him that there are consequences to doing such unacceptable things. Later on, if it happens again it will say a lot about his inability to learn.

If he'd called the ref/another player a woman what should the punishment be?

A trip to spec savers I would think

Seriously.....a public statement, AND spend some time working with the 6 percent of the UK population who are not heterosexual?

And all this, based on nothing more than supposition?

Have a word with yourself.

[url=https://vine.co/v/Md0egWOePWpI'd hardly call it supposition.[/url I think it's pretty blatant.

I think this puts the RFL in a slightly tricky position, assuming somebody has something more concrete than that video as evidence.

I'm not really a massive fan of treating match footage like CCTV, and I wonder how the complainant found it.

But, the bottom line is that it isn't language he should be using at all, and certainly not in public. The cameras are not hidden, so if he said it I couldn't bring myself to have much sympathy.

It is quite likely that he never even thought about any connotations, and it's a word that's crept into common vernacular in some circles (I used to play in a football team where it was bandied around a lot, and we had two gay players). But that used to be true of casual racism as well, and we wouldn't expect the RFL to turn a blind eye to that.

I suspect that there's some mileage to be had out of some education work here, and that might be more useful than a ban. Fine to be given to Stonewall or similar, some very public challenge to casual use of the word - which I bet a good half of SL players have in their insult bank.

All assuming there's some more substance to this than the Youtube video.

I am also assuming that the ref was content that it wasn't aimed in his direction, otherwise I would hope that the other F word being alleged would have been enough to get a red card.