How many professional sportsmen and women have had the guts to come out? How many have had the guts in Rugby League? There are surely many other gay and bi sexual men playing in super league who may want to be honest about their sexuality but don't want the extra attention and possibility of abuse. How are they going to feel seeing how Gareth Thomas has been treated by a certain minority of idiots? He was brave enough to be open about his life and try and set the example.

Maybe certain Castleford fans should think about this when they are bemoaning that the club could not do anything or it was actually Thomas' fault! (see Castleford boards)

While true, that's only part of the story. What seems to be getting put to one side in the debate is that the fine wasn't for the chanting, [iper se[/i, but for Cas not doing anything to stop it, or to identify and punish the offenders.

Looks like the punishment worked!

[urlhttp://www.sportinglife.com/rugbyleague/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=rleague/10/07/09/RUGBYL_Castleford.html[/url



Wonder why they didn't do that at the time, instead of waiting 3 months...

looks like a case of stable door, horse bolting etc. I'm sure cas will use this in their appeal, but the facts remain that at the time the fine was imposed nothing had been done. If cas had been able to prove during the original hearing there was an ongoing investigation the fine wouldn't have been so severe. To me, it looks like the investigation which has led to these three bans has only come after the ban was imposed.

The investigation has been taking place since the issue was raised - can perfectly understand the comments as the bans have come since the fine and therefore looks suspicious, my biggest critisism of the club in the time from the game to now has been that it wasnt seen to be being active in dealing with the matter publicly at a time when the club needed to stand up and be counted 'pr dissaster on dissaster'
This has not been straight forward and in all honesty the banned so called fans have been guilty to a certain degree of giving themselves up through comments made away from the club. Other fans in the 'group' have come under pressure from other fans especialy since the fine to name and shame where previously there may have been concern over repercusions and a miss guided sense of loyalty, and although cctv footage is available it is difficult to seperate the fans singing abuse to the fans shouting and singing other things (there has been a seperation of the fans in the WRE for quite some time and often you find two or three groups of people singing different things, mainly due to the fact one particular group treat matchdays as a youth club type gathering with little inteest in the game itself).
I dont want to sound to be making excuses on the clubs behalf and was reluctant to post this message incase it appeared that way - as i say i have been, and in ways still am critical of the handling of this situation in the public eye and to the RFL, just waned to say all genuine Tiger fans are delighted we finally have some joy regarding these individuals and to say weening out these people has not been as easy as some may think.

An honest response, from an obviously genuine fan to reasonable debate. Fair play.