TARA Jones’ rugby league season is going from strength to strength before it has hardly got started.

The 21-year-old from Penketh became the first woman to have an on-field match official role in a Super League game when she was an in-goal judge for the Wigan Warriors versus Wakefield Trinity clash at the DW Stadium on Sunday, March 11.

Her milestone week was capped off by being named captain of the new St Helens Ladies team for the inaugural women’s Super League season.

The England international hooker’s playing season does not arrive until April and so the boots will only be being laced up for officiating – and training - at the moment.

At the weekend the Penketh Pool lifeguard was running a line in the Normanton Knights versus Rochdale Hornets Challenge Cup fourth-round tie.

She has progressed to a grade two match official this year, after having first started out as a referee aged 12.

Colleague Nick Woodward, secretary of the Warrington Rugby League Referees’ Society, is impressed with the way she tackles her role in what is a brutal sport played by no-nonsense players.

“She handles things very well, always dealt with anything she’s had to handle very well,” he said.

“Tara’s very calm and doesn’t get wound up easily.

“In matches the players take to her differently than they do with me, for example.

“They’re not as aggressive as they are towards me for any decisions they don’t agree with.

“They respect her a bit more. Whether that’s because she’s a woman, I don’t know, but I think there is something in the psychology of the players.”

Jones, a two-times winner of the society’s referee of the year prize, was nominated as National Conference League Referee of the Year in 2017.

Woodward added: “Tara’s very well liked and respected in the society.

“There’s a lot who will hang on to her every word when she speaks.”

On the playing front she won the women’s league Grand Final with Thatto Heath four years in a row and has represented the senior England team three times, as well as Lancashire and England Students.

Jones, a sports technician at Cronton Sixth Form College in Widnes, says each of her rugby roles benefit the other in the busy life that she leads.

“Playing and officiating both help each other out,” she said.

“I’m training nearly every night. If I’m not actually training, it’s a meeting or reviewing games or previews. They help each other and I’ll do extra training in between.

“I don’t have much time for much else in my life.

“My friends are really supportive and really good about it. I socialise with my friends but they understand that if I go out I might not drink.

“At the weekend my friends asked me if I wanted to go to town on Saturday night but I said no because of the big game on Sunday.

“But they get it, they’re very supportive, and don’t leave me out.”