Return of the Biff

Correspondent

Over the years people have been moaning about the lack of biff (fighting) in rugby league. People have been saying that the biff has left Rugby League and because of this Rugby League is not as good of a game. That completely baffles me. In most of the Tri-Nations games so far there has been fighting of some sort. There have also been a couple of fights in the Federation Shield.

In the Tri Nations first match Matt King and some New Zealand players had a bit of a scrap. In two of the three Great Britain matches so far there have been some sort of fight / argument. On to the Federation Shield there have been two brawls in the past couple of matches. It makes you think are the referees doing enough to stop this?

Take Willie Mason. Ok something was said in the tackle with Stuart Fielden but there was no need for the right hook that he landed on him. That caused Peacock to start having a pop at mason. Ashley Klien did nothing. He should have been at least sin binned, so he couldn't do the same to Long. Willie Mason should be thankful that Paul; Sculthorpe and ex GB captain Andy Farrell weren't on the pitch or he would have had another shiner no doubt.

After he landed an elbow on Long, he got put on report. It takes the Mickey a bit. He got a one game ban. Harsher disciplinary action should have been taken on them two incidents. Unfortunately people won't remember that match for the super GB win over the Aussies, but by Mason's act of thuggery.

Now I’m going to stop with the rant about referees not doing enough to stop the fighting, and praise Richard Silverwood for some good officiating on Sunday afternoon's Federation Shield final.

In the first half when Ferres and some other player started throwing a couple of punches, he just gave them a yellow to cool down, which was fair enough. It's hard when players completely lose there cool to control them. Silverwoord didn't control the Tongasn behaviour in the last five / ten minutes, but he did a good job none the less. Some officials wouldn't have sent players from the field in the situation after the mass brawl in the last few minutes of the match.

On to the Sean Long flying home from the tour controversy. Some things make me and other Rugby fans think, has he done something stupid? In the past Long has put a bet on his own team losing and sat on the bonnet of a car while driving down a main road in St Helens. There have been rumours he was drunk and/or placed a bet on the Tri Nations outcome.

His wife was heavily pregnant and due to give birth during this tour. But why did he leave if he knew she would give birth and have to come back. Surely he knew this would cause some form of controversy. It's a bit of a mystery in the RL world at the moment. I for one hope this is cleared up before it turns into a farce.

When I first read about this story the headline on teletext said “Long SENT HOME from Tri-Nations”. I told my dad about this, and by this time it said that Long had left on his own accord. Is there something that Great Britain and the RFL are not revealing to us?

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