There should be many factors considered when it comes to a decision to sack Clubb or not. If the club don’t have issues with his previous conduct, they don’t have concerns with his conduct going forward, he’s shown remorse and a willingness to be educated on the subject, then there is no way in my mind that he should be sacked. If they’re convinced this is a one off mistake then good people do make errors of judgment and they should stand by him. The club should help support him and the rest of the players by giving them guidance and education on the subject.

That is all assuming we take away the fact that some would be happy to see him sacked because he’s performing dreadfully on the field. That shouldn’t come in to the thinking at all but it will with some and had this been Bateman, Hastings, Smithies etc the opinions would be different.

Fully agree.

I’ll hold my hands up and see in the immediate aftermath I was all for having him gone based what happened but also on performances. It’s hard not to jump to that really; cap space opens up for a decent metre making prop and we get rid of an immensely under performing prop

For me it all depends on his reaction to it if he did say it. If he said it out of ignorance and is willing to apologise and be educated then I would keep him and have him attend an equality and diversity course. If he said it and stands by it, or doesn't want to apologise/do some equality and diversity training then I would part ways.

I wouldn't just use it as a convenient way to get a poor performer off the cap because we run the risk of having to do the same thing if there is a similar incident in future with one of our best players, which I don't think the club would based on how they have dealt with other players getting themselves into trouble (albeit not regarding racial issues).

Cleary if he’s said it and is just sitting there going ‘I don’t see an issue and won’t apologise’ then he’ll be gone. We can all have our say on how offensive we find the comment and if it’s racist, xenophobic or whatever but the vast majority will agree it isn’t right however you want to label it and there is surely some regret on Clubbs part. He seems a very popular member of our squad and I generally think our squad seems full of good people. Good people don’t like idiots and that gives me confidence Clubb isn’t one and has simply made an isolated error. You only need to look at the level of debate that has gone in to this thread to understand that people would be capable of making comments they may not believe are inappropriate and whilst you can punish people, you shouldn’t automatically throw them to the Wolves.

8 matches

The press release from the RFL is a joke
No wonder the sport is not taken seriously.

In what way? Not seen it.

8 matches is the same as Suarez got for abusing Evra, Cavanni got 3 matches for an Instagram post

So it would be in line with other bans for a similar offence

The judge says Clubb said something racist in the heat of the moment but they don't find that he is racist. The statement implies that's based on testimony from teammates.

Not going down well on social media but I'm not really sure what punishment they expected.

rlhttps://www.superleague.co.uk/article/1963/disciplinary-tony-clubbrl

It seemed very amateurish to me, like they’d ask the YTS lad to knock it up. It basically seemed to suggest they don’t know for sure he said it but he probably did and it’s a bit racist but not as racist as you could be and as Tony Clubb is meant to be a decent bloke and not racist, even though he’s said something a bit racist, we’ll give him 8 games.

FWIW the decision seems about right to me and Wigan should now speak to him and discuss where they go. As I’ve said previously this should be no free pass to get a poor player off the books. They need to judge it like they’d judge the incident if it was John Bateman or Bevan French they were dealing with. If he’s remorseful and open to Wigan’s ideas of how we proceed (education and the like) then he should be kept on.

I hope he is pushed out the same way Joel Tomkins was.

"In the heat of the moment" mitigation is terrible. As he's been found guilty and therefore charged he should have faced the full consequences (zero tolerance).

Another slur against our great club.

I agree. I say, and I’m sure you do too, a lot of things in the ‘heat of the moment’. What they’re not however is racist, homophobic etc. I’d be sacked from my job for that and I couldn’t expect any less either. That’s not to say Clubb should be as it happens but I find the whole ‘Grandma’s blue eyed boy who made a little error’ line shameful.

It doesn't appear that the RFL have changed their grading of such offences, so with the precedent already set with Justin Carney, and leniency allowed for a good disciplinary record it may be that this was the only likely outcome. I think the question should be asked as to whether the guidelines the RFL put in place are sufficient. The panel can only operate within the RFL's guidelines after all. 8 games seems to be a similar punishment as handed out in sports such a football so perhaps the RFL are happy to match that.

A few questions spring to mind though:
- Should a good disciplinary record based on physical offences really be mitigation for racial abuse? Why would a bad disciplinary record affect this? Why would a 2 match ban for a high tackle or 3 match ban for dangerous contact be an aggravating factor in a case of racial abuse?
- Should character references really carry such weight in a sport where being active in supporting the community is pretty much mandatory? I mean most players are active in the community and could use that as proof of good character. You can do lots of charity work, community work, have a significant positive impact on the lives of others AND be racist. I'm not suggest that's what Clubb is, but it just seems a little bit irrelevant. The stated in the press release that Clubb isn't racist. That was never something that they were asked to make a judgement on.
- What exactly does someone have to say to get more than the minimum suspension?

In my own personal opinion, which obviously means very little, I think the RFL had a great chance as part of their anti-racism initiative to increase the recommended suspensions for offences of abuse as an attempt to show they won't tolerate racism. They didn't and it seems public opinion views the outcome as lenient.

It does seem a bit of a stretch to me though that someone 'in the heat of the moment' refers to someone's ethnicity as in an insult. I've heard in rugby league people reference others as pommy, Aussie or Kiwi 'so-and-so's' that may get a pass at times as just nation vs nation rivalry but Polynesian - to a guy born in New Zealand and who is as far as I'm aware a British national, just seems a bit hard to pass off as letting something slip in the heat of the moment. Who uses the term Polynesian to such an extent that it just slips out accidentally?

The last time we saw a player hurl abuse he was released, unfortunately for him he was stupid enough to carry on when it was being recorded on a phone.

For Clubb, at best he might get to keep his job till the end of the season, however the Wigan club have been pretty righteous recently when it comes to players behaviour (remember our proposed LBGQT event we had planned vs Catalans in protest to Israel Folau's comments, even though this got cancelled due to Covid). Let's see how the club play this, he's out of contract and pretty much coming to the end of his career anyway, will he just slide off quietly in July or straight back into the team?