My bad. I thought it was an opposition player (I did read the disciplinary page on the RFL site too!). We may find out who does and who doesn't back up Zak once the hearing has been completed. Not sure whether this one will be made public as the routine ones are though.

I disagree, on both points. I think there are two sentences that stop it from being a genuine apology, never mind a good oneIn the heat of the game, I have used an offensive term and I can honestly say I was deeply saddened when I found out after the game how my comment had been perceived.'"

But it's a homophobic insult, regardless of how others perceived it, and I'm sure he has numerous other words he could have used to insult someone if he felt he had to but he chose that one. So he should have simply taken full responsibility for what he said without trying to justify it at all or lessen it by calling it 'a mistake'. He knew what he was doing. He knew what fag meant. Heck, it's even specified in the homophobia guide issued by the RFL as a homophobic insult.

A genuine apology would simply be to say sorry for causing offence and he was wrong to use the word.

Do you have comprehension problems? That's in the statement.

He says those things, he says sorry for causing offence, that he was wrong to use that word, and that he accepts his responsibility for it and the hurt it caused.

Considering most of the justification, mitigation and defence of Hardaker on here has been "its not that big a deal", "he didnt say it to a gay person so its ok", "he didnt mean it in a homophobic way, so its ok" i think it is better that he has explicitly accepted responsibility and understood the power of his words are a big deal even though it wasnt aimed at a gay person and the criticism is still real and valid and deserved even though he didnt mean it in a homophobic way.

I think it is you who has the comprehension problems. The word sorry is indeed in the statement but what I said was that sorry was ALL that was needed, and that he was wrong - NOT that he 'made a mistake' (which is opting out of responsibility since a mistake is generally made in ignorance; an insult is NOT made in ignorance).

So, a simple 'Sorry, I was wrong to call Monaghan (or the ref, whichever) an effing fag and I am sorry for the offence my behaviour caused Monaghan and anyone else at the match or watching on TV' would have been a genuine apology. That isn't what was said though. The club put forward mitigating circumstances, spoke about how his words were perceived, talked about a 'mistake'.

I'm bored of this "argument" if I'm honest.
We are ALL going just round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round..............and round in circles.

The apology is completely fine for me, it addresses the possible offence that could be caused and acknowledges that he was wrong to use it.

Having said that, there's no place in our family game for that sort of language as far as I'm concerned. Although heterosexual myself, I am close to people who are homosexual and I can understand and have seen the offence that such statements can cause and the hurting that goes with it. I'd expect a ban (1-2 weeks) and I think that would be fair, there's plenty of other ways to insult somebody without resorting to homophobic slurs (whether intended to be homophobic or not).

No doubt if he'd have simply said "sorry" you'd have called it contextless and empty.

With the obvious sledging that goes on at the play-the-ball area or between players etc, I'm sure much worse has been said. Rugby is a game on the battle ground and you expect certain slurs which get banded about (all in line with physical game, which Terry Newton declared as a 'rough game played by rough people') but have very little meaning once all players leave the pitch.

In this case, in the 2014 environment of the Big Brother 'warts and all' approach Zak has been copped by this technology and the fury and bandwagon has been jumped on by all sorts (opposition fans, really bad rugby journalists etc). So Leeds have issued a 'painting by numbers' statement to go along with things and hopefully to get the matter put to bed. Whatever punishment is handed Leeds will wear to diffuse the situation, rather than possibly object and add fuel to the fire.

I think it is a good statement and well written. He will take whatever punishment the RFL dish out (the wording in the statement implies there will be one) on the chin and we'll all move on.

The End.

Nope. I would have respected his honesty, and would have said so.

I would still expect him to receive a punishment though. There are consequences to all our actions and this is an important moment IMO, especially given links with Stonewall and the Tackle It project. The RFL cannot be seen to compromise on this and if they do so then their credibility will be up the spout as this story has made national news and will I am sure be followed up.

Did you read the RFL's own guidance on homophobia that I linked to in the other thread? If not then you probably need to as it was just the kind of reasoning you come out with that they are against. So you can call fans and journalists all you want, the RFL has laid out how things are, the law of the land has made it clear that homophobic abuse in the workplace is illegal, and therefore action is needed to make sure this doesn't happen again, regardless of whether it has happened before.