Afternoon guys and gals,

I imagine you saw the unfortunate incident that blackened Featherstone Rovers recent Challenge Cup success over our local rival's, Castleford Tigers. The dust has now settled, the pictures seen by most of the Rugby League family.

I'm writing on your fan page this evening to let you know about our efforts to help the lad, Tangi Ropati who suffered the injury. He faces a major loss in earnings as his visa states he can only earn a living playing Rugby League for Rovers.

A group of fans, including our mascot, Bluebeard, are participating in a 26 mile charity walk to raise funds for him. This walk is from The Shay, Halifax, back to the Big Fellas Stadium, Featherstone. This takes place on the 6th May.

Anyone who would like to pledge towards this cause. I am attending this Friday nights game. You won't miss me as I'm dressed in a Samoan/Hawaiian outfit, (More Hawaiian) Pink shirt, grass skirt and hat. I will have a collection bucket in hand. No contribution is too small, and I will be deeply grateful to any individual who gives the bucket a rattle.

The response from fans & players so far has been Fevulous

Thank you for your time taken to read this

All the best for the game, hope your enjoy your experience at our humble little home, and fingers crossed, come 2014, we may face one another in the Super League.

Thank you again

I'm sure the club will seek legal advise on the matter. Can't think of any previous incidents, where a player has seeked compensation, against the individual who caused it. Hopefully it won't come to that. It's a contact sport, we want tackles to be legal of course, but we'd hate our players to refrain from big hits, to avoid the risk of potential court action.

....on another note........any standing water on the pitch yet

ps will be in the seated stand waiting for the bucket collection for Tangi so i can do my bit

Dunno about the pitch, but lots of standing water on the playing field and green in Ackworth, 1 1/2 miles away.

Re: getting a no win no fee solicitor in.

I'm just finishing my law degree now so I can maybe give a bit more information on this.

Proving a tort of offences against the person in a professional sporting context is notoriously difficult. Lawyers and academics have been arguing for years over whether or not injuries like this constitute a normal and acceptable risk through playing the game (which has normally been seen as the threshold).

A friend of mine is currently writing a dissertation on the subject (with a particular focus on rugby) and there's a really large amount of confusion over it. Its worth going to seek advice but the standard set will be hard to reach particularly due to the fact rugby is a physical game and injuries like this might been as an acceptable risk which does not give rise to liability.

A good financial adviser would have recommended something like rlthisrl.