I AM sure you have had many letters regarding the Long/Gleeson affair, but having read the rugby league newspapers today, I think many people are getting carried away.

It seems that everyone is of the opinion that such bets by players automatically assumes match fixing and major betting syndicates. From what I have read there is no suggestion of this.

When sports people bet on their own sport it does instantly attract suspicion and if the players mentioned have made bets, be it for themselves or a friend then they must have rocks for brains. However they have not broken the law of the land, merely breached rugby league byelaws.

At best they have been foolish and at worst guilty of gross misconduct. What the punishments is, is for the RFL or Saints to decide.

But now we have Ralph Rimmer of Huddersfield Giants saying the players should be banned before sentence is passed. As Saints are playing Huddersfield in the cup he, of all people should keep his beak out of things, certainly until after the cup game.

All Saints fans should get behind the players and give them support just as Leeds Rhinos gave support to their players who were recently in trouble.As for the Bradford fiasco, Millward has plenty to answer

How can he claim that all the players were injured from Friday? I also blame the players for going along with his actions. They chose to be rugby players and as such they should be prepared to play every game. I, and I'm sure many other fans, go to work five days a week for a lot less money than the players.

Wigan, Warrington, Widnes etc all played on Friday but they didn't field weakened teams on Easter Monday.

We had this situation two years ago and lost the cup final, so it doesn't work. When we won the cup in 1996 we played a bruising game at Halifax the week before with a full side out and won that as well.

I have a number of friends who are Bradford fans and they are equally annoyed. They wanted to see a contest.

Unfortunately we, the fans, who spent time and money going to Bradford, will all suffer.

JOE Coy (via e-mail).