I have seen him perform on the u18s/20s and his performances there where 3rd rate at best how the heck he ever got onto the SL panel is beyond me. Perhaps with the shortage we had early on with Smithy retiring they bumped him up, well that was a mistake.

I can see Rich Agar getting a hefty fine as will the club judging by some of the comments I have seen attributed to KH. The RFL has always backed up its officials and I see it will do no different here, they may deal with Mr Childs put him back a division or have him quietly retrained. If they admit one of the officials has boobed it opens up a whole load of what ifs, including teams asking for re matches etc.

Hefty fines,even touchline bans and warnings about future conduct to those involved, Longy will get at least two matches. The RFL will be keen to snuff out any dissent in the ranks and anyone expecting this too end with him getting publically censored are going to be awefully dissapointed.

For my money they where right to think it and very wrong to say it, they know the rules.

That comes back to their motivations for saying it though. Genuine outrage at an injustice, or the realisation that it was a bloody good opportunity to take some of the heat off the Head Coach?

If it's the latter then they'll probably view the fines as a more than acceptable price to pay.

It's already worked on here, with all the "lay off Rich" posts

For my money they were representing the fans, many of whom travel a long way and spend a lot of cash to watch the game. The fans, mostly, agree with what the club has said and as such the club is right to make known their feelings. The fans don't want to watch games refereed in that way and have no voice to challenge the RL so the club has done everyone a favour. Of course they will be fined that is what the RL do and in supporting their officials like they will do in this case it will ensure that the damage done to the game continues as and when the next debacle occurs with this referee.

The fact that they didn't have the gumption to realise that there are channels to be followed, rather than conducting public rants, suggests to me that they are either terminally stupid or saw an opportunity to seize on a detraction.

I tend towards the latter

You tend where you like mate. I'm sure they've followed the 'channels' on regular occasions. Maybe they thought an alternative channel was in order this time around. How did you feel Child went over the whole 80 mins ?

They know the rules, they knew that making those sort of comments would not help any case at the RFL. There is a clear laid out route of complaint that the clubs follow and by not following this route they will ensure that all those involved will get heavily fined and or banned.

Why did these two act the way they did I wonder

See above. I think you are 'spinning' the situation regarding Child in an attempt to find yet another way to criticise the club. And I thought it was only Rule who did the 'spinning'.

Or "loyal fans" and Agar apologists, like you

"Agar apologist"

Something a child would write.

Maybe they finally got fed up of following the 'clear laid out route' when we all know that it gets you absolutely nowhere. Perhaps they were fed up of refs performances being whitewashed week after week with absolutely no consequences for poor performances. Possible the chat they had with Ganson following the Wigan game where he admitted that he'd made lots of mistakes made them feel that the established channels simply don't work.

One thing we do know is that no matter the reason there will be some who want to take the worst possible view of events and attempt to blame the club for everything regardless of the facts.

We know the club are going to get fined for their outburst regardless of what the refs report/review says. We also know that the result will not change regardless of the refs report/review. So to blast the referee in front of the media was a silly thing to do no matter which way you look at it.

I disagree. If everyone just sits around pretending that there isn't a problem then nothing will change, and Cummings is ruining the sport with his mismanagement of officials. We and every other club have been using the correct channels for years with no improvement or even indication that the powers-that-be recognise the problem. Maybe dragging this out into the open might get results, maybe not. It certainly can't make things worse and we can afford the fine.

None the less, NO coach has the right to slate a ref in public like that. How the hell are players supposed to show respect for the officials if they know that their coach has none? Undermines the whole game. ([isound familiar[/i?)

It's pretty evident that no one (players/fans/coaches) has any respect for James Childs irrespective of what is or isn't said in public.