Tara Jones is about to make rugby league historical past by changing into the primary girl to take cost of a senior northern hemisphere skilled males’s match.
The England worldwide might be within the center for Sunday’s League One sport between Oldham and Cornwall.
Jones additionally performs for St Helens and was the primary participant to attain a strive in a Girls’s Problem Cup closing at Wembley.
RFL match officers head Phil Bentham stated: “Tara has earned this chance after years of regular growth.
“She has obtained high-profile appointments in quite a few competitions, together with this season’s Betfred Problem Cup, and has impressed everybody with the best way she has carried out – incomes the respect of gamers, coaches and her fellow match officers.”
Along with her enjoying duties with Saints, Jones has additionally often been an on-field choose for skilled video games having develop into the primary feminine match official when she was an in-goal choose for Wigan’s sport towards Wakefield in 2018.
Jones has refereed on this season’s Problem Cup because the RAF took on the Navy within the first spherical stage, nevertheless this Sunday’s fixture at Boundary Park would be the first senior skilled fixture she could have officiated as a referee.
The RFL has additionally appointed skilled contact choose Andy Smith as a full-time coach within the match officers’ division, whereas former officers James Baby, Ian Smith and Matt Thomason will develop into match officers reviewers.