Tara Jones will make history this weekend when she becomes the first female to officiate a men\u2019s Super League match \u2013 marking a landmark moment for rugby league.<\/p>\n
Jones has been appointed to the fixture between league leaders Wigan Warriors and bottom club Huddersfield Giants on Saturday afternoon, a milestone occasion for the sport and for Jones.<\/p>\n
The former St Helens player is one of the most promising match officials in the game, and has already run the line in a number of top-flight fixtures, as well as officiating matches outside Super League.<\/p>\n
But Jones is now going to make the step up again, taking charge of Wigan\u2019s match the winless Giants in a week which will also see her receive her MBE for services to rugby league.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old admitted:\u00a0\u201cI was a bit shocked when I found out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was travelling on my way down to London to receive my MBE at Windsor Castle tomorrow so it\u2019s a bit manic and I\u2019m not in the office today.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Match Officials General Manager] Andy Smith asked me to jump on a Teams call and all the match officials coaches were on it. I actually thought I was in trouble. I wasn\u2019t quite sure what they all wanted!<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then they gave me the good news that they\u2019ve appointed me to my first Super League game this weekend and I was just absolutely made up.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou never really know what to say in those kinds of situations. I thanked the coaches. I really appreciate their support and them believing in me as well. And now I\u2019m really looking forward to the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones walked away from her career as a player to pursue a dream of becoming a full-time match official, something she achieved last year. And she admits this moment underlines how her sacrifices have been worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel very proud after refereeing since the age of 12. This has always been a lifelong ambition of mine to referee in Super League.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking the decision to retire from playing just over a year ago was a really hard one and something I initially struggled to come to terms with. But the past 12 months or so since being a full-time official has really cemented for me that I have done the right thing.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking my Super League debut this weekend makes it all worth it \u2013 and the 12 year-old me would be very proud!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tara Jones will make history this weekend when she becomes the first female to officiate a men\u2019s Super…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342616,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-491399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491399\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}