In terms of "blaming the referee", it's not his fault and everyone if responsible for their own actions.

However, I don't agree that the referee cannot do anything about it. Good officiating uses good strategies to help prevent poor behaviour, sort of like a teacher. You cannot just impose your authority and just expect everyone to behave unfortunately. You SHOULD be able to, but the reality is that it does not work like that. Same as a classroom. You build up respect, you show respect, but you dish out consequences correctly and fairly and at the right times to prevent further problems.

Whilst the referee is not to blame for the actions of players or fans, they are in a position to prevent it before it even starts. It is something the RFL should train their referees to do more so we have less of this bickering becoming violent.

I'm interested to know what you think Child could or should have done differently.

From what I saw, Child was clear in his decision making, communicating with the players and trying to get the game to flow. If the players are determined not to respond to that, at what point do we point the finger at them? These aren't school kids - they're professionals who should know better.

Chris Hill is a player that seems to have particular issue with taking instruction from James Child and last night was not the first time he has had issues with him. Maybe the real issue is Chris Hill?

Maybe if he penalised the Dragons for their sh**house tackles then Wire players wouldn't have got so frustrated. The damage being done under his nose was ridiculous. Players had no protection what so ever. Also being way too pally with Tompkins what's that about?

Maybe if the Wire players could keep their composure in, let's be honest, a fairly low-pressure environment, it might actually be their year one year.

That’s great but what about the fans.

Strange that the referee is getting the blame. Because of the production you could clearly hear the referee talking to the players all through the game, it's hardly his fault that they took no notice is it?

He sent two players to the sin bin early on, which should have been a warning to the players to calm down. McIlorum can feel very hard done by in that instance, he was merely trying to pull Hill away from the Catalan player.

And why any of this should result in "fans" attacking each other is completely beyond me.Just to add since Catalan came into Superleague, I've been to every game over there except two, anf have seen very little trouble, and certainly nothing like the scale of that yesterday, and there's been some "debatable" referring performances!!

After catching the last few mins last night, then reading a lot of the comments about James Child, I imagined he must have had a real horror show. Having just watched the game in its entirety, I found a lot of the criticism to be utter b0ll0cks. Catalans are never the least grubby of teams but what they served up last night was fairly standard in terms of low level thuggery, certainly nothing to induce Warrington's disciplinary collapse. The majority of the game was actually quite watchable with Child keeping it flowing despite a large amount of gobbing off by the usual suspects.

Anyone who thinks the ref is to blame for fans fighting needs to watch another sport.
A quid will get you a ton there was beer involved......too much beer.
I hope they hand out lifetime bans to all concerned

Agreed,and anyone who thinks otherwise must be a Wire fan.

Anyone who defends the violence or deflects blame for it is an ignorant thug.

I've watched the video replays of the fans fighting and for the life of me, can't see the referee anywhere? What I did see was a number of blokes dressed directly from Sports Direct trying to climb into the boxes at the back of the stand and another group repelling them.
Disgusting behaviour with no place in our sport.

Referee lets things go, crowd complain he's lost control. Referee blows a few penalties and produces a couple of cards, crowd complain he's lost control.James Child did ok. There's players on both sides need to 'have a word' with themselves.