In 30 years of watching RL I have only ever personally seen four incidents involving physical violence:
1) Hull KR away in 1988 - don't remember much about it
2) Cas away in the mid 90's - we changed ends at half time and they didn't want us in their shed
3) Featherstone away 3 years ago - local kids who hadn't been to the game were waiting in the streets as we left the ground
4) Leigh at home two years ago - drunk old men chucking punches at a group of parents there to watch kids playing at half time
Never had an issue with Salford fans, however I did once see the Salford hooker Ian Gormley jump into the crowd at Thrum Hall following a sin binning!!
As someone who was a matter of metres away from what unfolded, there was certainly no mass brawl as the national media coverage would have you believe. It was one two and the vast majority of those involved in the altercation were trying to pull people away and split it up. It was unfortunate that some of the players wives were seated infront and were caught up in it. I didn't see a single punch thrown.
It sounds like the scenes at Batley and Dewsbury were much worse, with fans fighting amongst themselves in the stands but I am guessing you didn't know about that did you?
Batley & Dewsbury don't have a high profile owner who uses the media chain in an advantageous way.Agree looking at it probably a mountain out of a mole hill.
Regardless of my thoughts the spotlight is on Salford not Batley or Dewsbury and how Salford deal with it will hopefully filter down to clubs getting away with it,should we say.Some good may yet come out of it.
As we all agree there's no room for it our game and needs to be dealt with harshly as a future deterent.
I'm not sure how they are going to deal with. It's OK threatening life bans, but it's going to be very difficult to understand which individuals were involved in the initial altercation. Hopefully stadium CCTV will help identify the two responsible as well as anyone else seen to be provoking events that followed.
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