most of them prob never even been to a widnes game before, be some tanked up football fans just going for the day out

Don't bury your head in the sand. Lots had Widnes shirts and clothing on that they would hardly spend money buying to attend one game, particularly the ones in replica shirts that cost £40+.
They need to face up the problem and sort it out as a club, don't just pull the "they are not Widnes fans" excuse out of the bag when they clearly are.

It's a sad indictment of the town of Widnes that so many "men" have not grown up and want to act like 13 year olds. I strongly suspect their intellects are under-developed.

There's no point in bleating about 'not real fans' when half of them had shirts on/flags/face paint, etc. The best thing Widnes can do is acknowledge this part of their fan base and stomp it out like Cas and Hull did. Hand out some lifetime bans & reinvent the fans. If they just write it off as a few football hooligans who had a rugby day out, it won't look like they are taking it seriously. From what I've heard, this isn't the first time Widnes have had some crowd trouble.

Why term them as football fans. There are plenty wearing Widnes colours, of the ones that are not bare chested. I dont understand why so many rugby league fans use the term 'football fans' when there is a major crowd disturbance. Football clubs may have a small percentage of hooligans and so do some of our clubs, not just Widnes.

It is so re-assuring when you see links to facebook and idiots proud of their behaviour and plenty of their 'friends' liking the status. The guy who was intimidating a steward for millions of TV viewers to see behind the post match interviews was wearing a shirt and doesnt appear to have regretted his actions judging by what he has put on facebook. You could hardly accuse him of having a few too many and getting carried away. He probably thinks hes a local celebrity and adding it to his personal achievements on his cv. Its also uplifting to see people with profile pictures which shows they must have young children liking his cover photo - im sure their children too will grow up to be model citizens.

I've not seen any trouble at football matches I have been to in recent years (granted they have been Premiership ones, not lower league ones). I'd say these people are more likely to the RUGBY LEAGUE 'fans' (oh I hate that term - it means yobs) than football ones.

This is the typical stupid, standard response from RL fans whenever there is trouble at a game. How many fans did Widnes take yesterday? I doubt there was many, if any 'tanked up football fans' just going for the day out.

Sadly this is the stock answer whenever there is trouble at a rugby league game. I wonder if these are the same one game wonder football fans who were at Wakefield, Hull and Warrington last season?

Iv seen more trouble at r.l in the last 15 years than iv seen at football and that is a sad state for r.l to be in.

Not just Widnes, there's plenty like it in every town. Unfortunately, they've attached themselves to the rugby club.
As for what to do, the blueprint is what they did at Hull FC. It was noticeable how the atmosphere changed for the better at games against FC after they took on the small problematic element amongst their fans.

I find it really sad that the actions of this bunch of loonies has generated a thread that's now lasted for 18 pages. They'll actually think that they're some sort of hero, when we all know that they have something seriously lacking between their ears. Every single one of them is known to someone and its that person's responsibility to make sure the culprit is identified to the authorities.
I really feel for the genuine Widnes fans who will now have to suffer in the same way that we Hull fans did back in 2000.
Their club will now be punished financially, which will obviously hinder any improvements that they were making to their squad.

The reason we see more incidents at RL than Football is not down to the people who follow the 2 sports but the way it is policed. If Football was policed in the same way as RL, there would be more violence in and around the ground. I for one find football supporters at matches to be more aggressive in their chants than at Rugby but that is just my opinion.

True - I've been watching Widnes home and away for many years and we do have a moronic element to the fans which can come out at away games. It's usually pretty low level - beer throwing, and then foul mouth abuse to anyone who remonstrates with them and the odd scuffle amongst themselves and it gets passed off as 'boisterous' or down to aggressive stewards. I'll often go and sit in with the home fans at away games just to avoid it - again, it's usually nothing actually dangerous (bar the throwing of flares), just annoying, but left unchecked and unchallenged it eventually escalates into what we saw yesterday. Someone also tried to empty their drink over Silverwood after the Cas first try yesterday, but missed and just drenched his own fans who were already so wet no-one probably noticed - but if that guy had been sat a few rows nearer the front, we'd have been looking at another incident to make the news.

The club will take action - but banning orders, whilst symbolic, are pointless as they are unenforceable without some sort of membership scheme like they had in football in the 80's, and we are nowhere near at that level of problem. Anyone's mate can get anyone else a ticket - and it's unfeasible to check fans against photo records on the way in.

Just out of interested, was James Rule (our current CEO) at Hull in 2000? If so, at least he seems to have experience of helping to get stuff sorted out, so that is something to be hopeful for at least.

Today, I'm just ashamed - no-one in RL would begrudge Cas a Wembley trip this year (expect perhaps in Wakefield!), and to be honest I, and the majority of Widnes fans yesterday who understand and appreciate the game, don't mind getting well beaten by a superior team that plays RL in that way and thankfully their fans did them proud by not reacting. Good luck to Cas at Wembley.

No it was Shane Richardson. James Rule only came to Hull when Uncle Kath tookover

Just to add that the club are not taking the position that these are 'bandwagon' fans.