Some Warrington fans are blindly defending their club not unlike some FC fans did similar after the accusations of racist abuse recently. Don't think this is limited to 1 or 2 clubs it's all of us. Flares Bottles Scrapping etc and we chant "Your The Scum Of Rugby League" at each other and try to make out our team is immune to drunken aggressive nutters who unfortunately attach themselves to the vast majority of peaceful friendly fans. Yesterday looked very bad from what I saw of the Sky cameras and first impression looks very damning for the travelling Warry lads storming the boxes. I don't see how Child can be blamed for that? I do however think the players involved in the fracas as professionals should be punished and although most of us like a bit of biff that was just feral and it spread to the boozed up rabble in that bit of stand. Can't be defended imo. Best just condemn it and face up to the fact it could have been any set of fans and it's every teams problem

Spot on.

That game was always likely to be incendiary with the likes of McIlorum and Hill on the pitch. Hill helped set the tone quite early on with the use of the elbow when lying on in a tackle so it’s a bit rich of him to complain. Patten and Philbin both have reckless tackling techniques, just like O’Loughlin at Wigan, and all are prone to make head high tackles. I actually think Child has improved a lot but that is from a very low base. However none of what went on yesterday was his fault and both clubs need to take a long hard look the attitude of their players.

You clearly missed child using the forearm on each set of six, then lobbing his beer at members of the crowd.

You need to get to specsavers in Warrington to get your prescription amended.

theres some idiots on here, trying to blame a referee for peed up yobs fighting in a stand??

get a grip or go watch boxing you tools

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.

I lost quite a lot of respect for Catalan in that game, the tactics they employed were a disgrace and against the spirit of the game.

They were very "grubby" tactics and the referee should maybe have stepped in earlier and had a word, but I am amazed as to how some Wire fans are blaming a bad ref on the violence off the park. As a London fan, we've had plenty of games where the ref gave us nothing, but I've never seen a punch thrown at a London game

Simple answer - ban the sale of alcohol before and during the game. Yes it's a financial hit to all clubs but the bottle throwing and fighting need to stop.

This isn't funny any more. The people with low intelligence that don't know their own limits have now gone too far. If a total ban needs to happen till the end of the season then so be it.

So...a handful of idiots act like idiots and you punish everyone?
I've never seen a punch thrown at a London Broncos home game and see no reason to penalise visitors to the wedding venue because a couple of idiots decide to go all Anglo Saxon.
In this day and age, I reckon it'l be easy enough to identify them and ban then for life with n need for a sledgehammer to crack the nut.

This is an utterly disgraceful post, you’ve shown your true colours here. Grown men who can’t handle their ale felt the need to try and attack Catalans fans yet that is somehow James Child’s fault? Warrington really have let the sport down and posts like this don’t help.

Hats off Sir!

It's nothing new though they were at it in their last match against us, with the rat the worst offender, however Watto put a simple plan together, don't get involved with their "gameplan" play around them and blow them away "again" !! worked to perfection.

Bravo to the RFL if they back and Childs . He did nothing wrong and forget about the bullcrud that occurred in the zoo cage , on the pitch the real ambassadors of our game let us down big time taking the sport back 40years. It was just unacceptable after being warned by Mr Childs to behave just moments before they then behave in such a manner that would on any high street end in a possible custodial sentence. It was violence and the thuggish behaviour IMHO was way worse than any overgrown drunken louts

On another point James Childs showed great restrain I think not to issue at least 6/7 red cards but these guys don't take things personally.