Official West Hartlepool RFC

Couldn't let this incident go unmentioned as it is something I hoped I would never witness at a rugby game...

West player down injured close to Sheff bench....(can barely tell who is who at this point due to the mud and black clouds above).
Sheff physio sportingly comes on to assist as West bench are on the other side of the field.
Play is about to restart....Sheff fan thinks its a Sheff player injured...shouts "Ref...there's a man down".

one of Sheff coaches - who has done nothing but abuse the official with foul language all afternoon - shouts "we don't care its only one of their f*****rs" and criticises their physio for helping out....

thankfully the injury was not serious but shocking state of affairs nonetheless....

Shocking. Theyre just that sort of club by the sounds of it. Did they have their stupid bloody choir (sp?) with them today. When we went to Sheffield they had some idiots jumping about and chanting songs like football hooligans.

One of their players was sin binned down Sheffield, and as he walked back to behind our posts, they all started chanting and cheering his name. At this point one of them decided to go down on his knees and bow to him.

Sounds like a club that needs to sort themselves out.

:-/

Not many Yorkshire accents heard from their team

Or their choir!

I have made reference to the rude language of one of their club's Senior people on another thread, but got to say many of the Sheffield folk were a pretty hospitable bunch.

I should have checked out the 'foreign legion' numbers - I think it's about half

I believe the rapid left winger Jon Cox is actually a Sheffield lad. He and his brother, Chris I think he's called, both played for Sheffield but have moved across the S17 postcode to the Jungle.

this was the same guy roy....the one who was near us in the first half.

Hey Up El Pedalo

We had to suffer this when we played them at home.

I recall Glen Wise being poleaxed as the forwards were running to a lineout, unseen by the ref of course, to which one of their 'blazers' shouted something along the lines of, 'Nice one ?? (one of their locks), but make sure the **** doesn't get up next time.'

What was even worse was that not only was he not pulled up by his colleagues in the stand (who agreed with him) but he then tried to say he'd done nothing wrong when we had a go at him.

If a 'blazer' can do that, no wonder the fans jump on the bandwagon. They had plenty of cheap shots to applaud that day.

All in all it was an awful experience to sit near them for the 80 minutes......

Mind you R&O one of your "blazers" I think he's the father of a couple of your players, was a bit near the mark, no in fact he was well over the mark on Saturday at Park. He was constantly swearing at our coach and was inciting violence from the touch line.

Not sure our coaches are always as polite as they should be to officials! Perhaps the referee on saturday should have awarded West a penalty!

Even though rovers fans tend not to know the laws of rugby, they don't really stray into the territory of the comments mentioned here by EP and R&O. The closest I can remember is "come on rovers, rip their livers out" on boxing day a couple of years ago. but i think he was joking!;-)

seriously though, coaches moaning at refs is one thing, but when its littered with expletives it definately crosses the line. The word "cheat" is also thrown around far too easily.

'Ow do Mr Pot & Kettle

Can't say I saw or heard what you describe, it certainly wasn't happening over the stand side where I was seated.

On a wider perspective I think you'll find our coach Kevin Roversgarth, as SCH would say, has shown impeccable behaviour on the touchline this season, even when faced at times with an awful referee or a non performing team! As far removed from Stubbs and Stabler as one could imagine................

No it was happeneing on the club house side, and he followed our coach up and down the touchline giving verbal abuse, pint in hand. No probs with any of the other Rovers supporters, blazers or coaches.;-)

i can't possibly think who he means %-)

:oP

Don't misunderstand me on this....

I'm not talking about your average "ref you're having a laugh" shouts or "ref's thats utter rubbish."
This guy was WAY overboard and his language was nothing short of shocking with families in the vicinity. The odd word...fair enough...but it really was out of order.

And regarding the injury would he have felt any remorse had the player had a serious injury and been stretchered off. I think not - such was the nature behind the comments. We can talk all day about the right and wrongs of shouting stuff on at the ref and/or players but i hope this is one thing we can all agree is way out of order.

I'll agree with you R&O that Westgarth seems to be one of the best coaches in terms of sideline manner. Hopefully we'll see it at more grounds around the league before we enter into a total football mentality.

Pete your very right about him - he ventured over to our side and started there too - Their physio apologised for him on numerous occassions.

I of course was my usual quiet self and didn't answer back once ;-)

CAn't wait for him to come to Brinkburn :-D