who'll give away the stupid penalties now? they should have got JJB in to replace him

Losing interest in the chances of England, and instead looking forward to seeing other nations, and then Aus vs NZ final at Old Trafford

Westwood won't it? another pantomime villain.

Correct, though I think they got away with it in this instance.

Is that you sneaking out the back William?

There was an excellent article in the Guardian a couple of years ago, specifically about the help he was getting from WIgan during his ban & the work Hock was doing in the community. It really was touching & appeared to me to be a young lad, as thick as 2 short planks, working hard to turn his career & life around.

Looks like he's P1ss3d all over that

Watching the interview on the BBC website he sounds as though he's still p!$$ed!

Yeah, sounds really thick. On one hand I feel sorry for him, and on the other I just think why are you trying to justify by mentioning other players, when you were the only one that did not turn up. Why can he not see that?



On the other hand, I do wish he would just say, had Sam Tomkins done this nothing would have being mentioned.

Maybe Tomkins wouldn't but Tomkins hasn't ballsed up as many times as Hock

How many times has Hock ballsed up for England?



I am not defending him, just saying that you can see why he feels a scapegoat. For me, he missed the training session or whatever it was, and it was because he had been drinking. Because of that I have no problem with the player kicked out, but I do have a problem in not differentiating between the offence and the player, if that was the case.

We don’t need to differentiate the player from the offence. It wasn’t anybody else that put Hock on the tightrope he surely knew he was walking? It wasn’t anyone else that spent a career with such poor discipline it was Hock. It wasn’t everyone else who has admitted to a substance abuse problem. He could have gone home with the other 18 players who went home to bed. He could have not drunk so much he was late for camp the next day.



Hock’s statement says everything about the man, the fact he tries to share the blame with his team-mates, that he didn’t see the importance of the conditioning he missed, the fact that despite all his chances he still hasn’t learned his lesson. If Hock was a changed man, he would have been part of the sensible group, not those pushing their luck. Hocks history means he has less luck to push and if he can’t understand that he has managed to become too stupid to be an RL player.



If I was one of the 6 or 7 he said this about, I’d be about ready to kick off

[iI blew up a bit and he said the others would be getting disciplined as well, but then afterwards I found out that there was only me being taken out of the squad. I was gutted.[/i

It sums Hock up completely, rather than throwing himself infront of the grenade to protect his team-mates, he tries to throw them under the bus to protect himself a few days before the start of a WC.