RIGHT TIME TO SAY TARA

It's official now as Jones focuses on new career

- DAVE CRAVEN

SHE could so easily have just kept winning trophies and scoring tries for St Helens and England.

Instead, Tara Jones decided to switch from poacher to gamekeeper. The star hooker, 28, quit playing at the end of last season to become the first woman to join the RFL's full-time match officials department.

Jones said: "I am enjoying it. It's been pretty intense.

"I was in for three weeks before Christmas and it's great to be able to now put 100 per cent in that (referee) progression.

"I'll always miss playing - it'd be strange if I didn't - but I'd done pretty much everything I could by that stage with St Helens.

"And I'd played in a World Cup and won 14 caps for England.

"It was the right time to hang up my boots and focus on being an official.