Just watched the game back on TV and looking forward to seeing our moment of triumph on an unforgettable day, only for it to be soured by the coverage Sky provided which was disgraceful and embarrassing.



It was indeed a weird day with the sad and tragic news that Terry Newton had taken his own life and quite rightly, they covered it at the start of the programme when they had found out. Fair enough, it was clear to see Eddie, Barrie but especially Brian Carney were shocked and suffering at that time and they moved onto the reason they were all there and the reason Fax and Fev fans will have recorded as well as neutrals tuning in.



Then during the stoppage in play due to the fire which was very well reported by Rod Studd, they accused the Fax fans of performing activities which "have no place in Rugby League" and goading the Fev fans and that was why we needed to be separated. Both of these were false and used to sensationalise events which were being rightly and properly carried out. I was in the middle of separation and at no time was there any goading, just Fax fans singing songs and carrying on the Final mood and atmosphere. They finally realised what had happened and over 30 minutes later, congratulated us and the authorities for behaving impeccably which on the whole we did.



The worst thing was after the game when with EVERY final Sky have covered previously, they have shown the celebrations with the fans, Champagne popping and interviews with the players as they take part in their lap of honour. Instead what they did was completely ignore our celebrations after the trophy presentation and start talking about the tragedy of Terry Newton's death which they had already covered previously., If they wanted to talk about it, they could have done it during the 45 minutes they had where they were stuck for anything to say and which they mentioned how the players must be frustrated 5 different times. Instead the coverage ended on such a downer on a Finals day which Eddie then said on the background of our players celebrating with the trophy and Champagne "on a sad day for Rugby League its goodbye."



I'm sorry it wasn't a sad day for me and the thousands of Halifax fans that were there, personally it was the best day of my life and to say that is digraceful and shows a complete lack of respect for the winners of the competition. I would have felt exactly the same if it had been the Featherstone squad celebrating instead.



Terry Newton's death was incredibly shocking, tragic and sad and my thoughts do go out to his family but there is a time and a place for extensive coverage of this subject and once they had already announced it and covered it there was no reason to come back to it at a time of great celebration for a club that hadn't won anything for 23 years. Would they have cut off and ignored Wigan/Saints celebrations if it had happened this coming Saturday?



RIP Terry Newton.

I completely agree

I was hoping that Sky might make up for it by having some further post match coverage on Boots n All.

I've just checked the Sky listings and it appears that the regular programme isn't on. Instead we have Boots n All - The Tries "A review of all the weekend's tries in Super League".

I guess I'll watch it, but I am about as confident as I was before the Grand Final.

Firstly as you were in the middle of the crowd during the incident you didnt see the goading that did go on around the edge of the group....BOTH ways...but I have to agree with your main point that the TV companies have their favourites and stuff anybody else (you only have to listen to Stevo when he's ranting about Saints). We suffered it at the hands of the BBC at the challenge cup final when they decided "right we've shown them get the trophy stick the celebrations on the red button". And that after they had stuck with the F1 running late.



Finals days are about the teams taking part and they should show what it means for the fans. Sometimes the game can be so intense and (unfortunetly like last night) "overshadowed" that the only perspective you get on what it means is when you see the six foot tall, 20 stone 45 year old bloke sobbing!



If they cant do it properly why insult the fans by trying to do it at all.

Boots n all the tries is a programme that has been on all season and shows all the Superleague tries that have been scored in each round.



Boots n all as a magazine programme had its last programme last Wednesday.



So dont hold your breath on seeing any extended coverage.



I will watch calendar and Look North tonight to see if there is any coverage.

I dont know about goading. But like what has been mentioned on another thread and you can see if you watch the Sky Replay of the Stand been evacuated. At the end of the replay you can clearly see a bunch of Fev fans surge forward and try to get on to the pitch while we evacuate. Were these goons running on to the pitch to exchange pleasentries with the Fax fans? No. Just idiots looking for a fight, i guess the guy who assaulted a female police officer when he ran on the pitch feels pretty proud of himself right now.

That's all we had all day, and they got it in the end with a poor lad serious in hospital with head injury needing surgery........... SKY also said that Matt Calland was in the Huddersfield dressing room!! Worrincy was called Michael!! It's obvious they don't like us can't even let us have our moment of 'well deserved' celebration and moment of glory!!!

They didn't show the celebrations when salford beat celtic in fact they didn't even show salford receiving the cup! They went straight to I think it was American football or some other such sport!

If your face doesn't fit.....

Fax's certainly don't it's all Widnes!!

Unfortunatly this lack of understanding re` the Championship clubs even extended to the main sponsor the Co-op. We had the good fortune and luck to end up as guests at the Co-ops VIP room .Their attentive hospitality was second to none the meal was superb , the free drinks and bottles of wine were flowing and the company was memorable.

What could be wrong with all that one might ask? Well there was just a bit of a niggle that did slightly annoy me.Guests in the room was Paul Sculthorpe who was introduced as Co-op ambassador &John Wilkes St Helens player and they were being interviewed by someone from the BBC. I found the interview very boreing but it wasn`t till later when analizing it and upon listening to someone from Featherstone actually complain about the interview to the Coop people that I realised why it was so wrong.

The complainant quite rightly pointed out that during the whole interview there was not one single mention of any of the 6 teams playing that afternoon nor any mention of any of the players except for Shad Royston who was congratulated because he was moving up to Super League.The whole interview was a summary of what was going on in Super League and what would be happening in the dressing rooms next week in the Grand Final.

The Co-op rep` thanked him for the feedback and tried to placate him somewhat but he did not back down and said it showed a total lack of understanding about the Champion clubs.

I thought it showed the Co-op also need to get genned up on the game too as it was a long time before the woman understood why at a Championship final we did not want to talk about Super League he said " do you think next week they will be talking about today ?no.

I too felt sorry about Terry Newton but did not relly see why this impinged on our day, I felt more sorry about the injured Fax fan. Fancy coming out of that ground with a feeling of euphoria like us all and then ending up on life support I feel sickened.I hope he makes a complets recovery with no ill effects.



Another thing I would like to mention is the fact that tempers were bound to run high amongst the Fev supporters (I am in no way excusing any thugish behaviour)as they have won nearly every match in the season and in any other sport they would have been promoted .To lose like that under those circumstances is cruel beyond belief the RFL have taken away the reward from us.

I was dissapointed with this too but i think the delay in the game meant that the programme started at 5:30 and ended up finishing almost 3 hours later,



over schedualing on sky that night might have meant they had to cut the celebrations being broadcast short.



also with Sky being free to watch yesterday, getting as much variety on the tv as possible might get more people to get Sky