Quote AS108="AS108"=#FF0000Original post editedSince when was the referee responsible for the actions of grown men in the stands or players on the pitch. There is nothing else James Child could have done. The only people responsible for the crowd trouble were the hooligans involved. You need to just accept that once again it’s Warrington fans causing trouble and this time they have humiliated and damaged our sport.'"
Whilst I agree that it most definitely NOT the refs fault that the Wire fans couldnt behave.
The ref definitely does have an effect on how the players behave.
If the ref is not protecting the players by penalising foul play and sin binning / sending off players for "mis behaving", they will take retribution themselves.
Quite often you will see games where the ref is not in control of the players and the game boils over and there was stuff going on in the Catalan /Wire game that Child dealt with badly (or not at all).
Shoulder charges, knees in tackles, head shots, late hits - it was all going on and he lost control.
As I said, this does not forgive ANY of the crowd trouble and in a game where so many players have been cited by the disciplinary, the officiating also needs looking at.
The whole thing was a disgrace