The Rugby Football League Ltd has suspended East Leeds and Moldgreen from rugby league activity involving Open Age, Youth and Junior teams for two weeks after incidents it said involved unacceptable behaviour. The sanction runs until the weekend of 6/7 June and does not apply to Primary Rugby League age groups.
The governing body said the action followed abandoned fixtures and abuse directed towards match officials, with both clubs holding meetings with the RFL after the incidents. One match between Moldgreen and Thornhill Trojans was abandoned in the second half following alleged crowd trouble, while East Leeds had three players sent off during its National League Division One clash with Dewsbury Moor on Saturday 16 May.
Moldgreen said an independent review carried out by the RFL on Tuesday 19 May included referee head-cam footage. The club said the review concluded that a Thornhill Trojan player left the field of play, went beyond the protective barrier, and confronted and assaulted a Moldgreen supporter. It added that the allegations that Moldgreen supporters had entered the field and assaulted an opposition player were categorically false.
The suspensions place both clubs out of Open Age, Youth and Junior activity while the RFL works through one of the sharpest disciplinary responses in the community game. The governing body said it is working with clubs across the Community Game to reinforce standards of behaviour and protect participants and volunteers, underscoring how quickly disorder around fixtures can spill into wider sanctions when officials, players and spectators are all drawn into the same dispute.
For Moldgreen, the timing of the ruling leaves its account of the Thornhill incident in direct conflict with the original allegations, and the review it described as conclusive will now sit alongside the RFL’s own disciplinary line. What happens next is whether the governing body’s response is seen as the end of the matter or the point at which the dispute over what happened on 16 May becomes even harder to settle.
