Jones says Tara to her former career

STAR SWAPS BALL FOR A WHISTLE!

- 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.

She admitted: "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.

"The chance doesn't come up too often and I couldn't put it off too much longer."