Can that even be done? I thought the squads were supposed to be finalised two weeks ago, hence New Zealand having a quick deadline to replace Harris with SBW before the final squads were submitted. After that, unless I'm mistaken, replacements could only be made because of injury. In fact, England look in breach of those rules even replacing Hock for non-injury reasons.

Time frame doesn’t really fit does it. Hardaker says this today www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... -1-6173563 McNamara said on Tuesday both Tom Burgess and Zak Hardaker were in contention to play Saturday, McNamara also insisted that South Sydney prop Tom Burgess and Leeds centre Zak Hardaker were in contention after stepping down to play for England Knights in their 52-16 thrashing of Samoa, which was played as a curtain-raiser at the Salford City Stadium on Saturday. "They were always in the frame," said McNamara, who watched the entire Knights game live. "They did play well and I thought Brett Ferres was good as well. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... te-6221587 Hock was apparently kicked out on Sunday. Most likely thing to have happened in my opinion, is that something not all that bad occurred. A couple of players got a telling off, Hock’s indiscretion was the straw that broke the camels back for him and he went. The rumour mill then went in to over-drive with a few well placed hints from people who should know better and we get this whole hullabaloo.

Time frame doesn’t really fit does it. Hardaker says this today www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/s ... -1-6173563 McNamara said on Tuesday both Tom Burgess and Zak Hardaker were in contention to play Saturday, McNamara also insisted that South Sydney prop Tom Burgess and Leeds centre Zak Hardaker were in contention after stepping down to play for England Knights in their 52-16 thrashing of Samoa, which was played as a curtain-raiser at the Salford City Stadium on Saturday. "They were always in the frame," said McNamara, who watched the entire Knights game live. "They did play well and I thought Brett Ferres was good as well. www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... te-6221587 Hock was apparently kicked out on Sunday. Most likely thing to have happened in my opinion, is that something not all that bad occurred. A couple of players got a telling off, Hock’s indiscretion was the straw that broke the camels back for him and he went. The rumour mill then went in to over-drive with a few well placed hints from people who should know better and we get this whole hullabaloo.

Are you (or anyone else 'in the know') prepared to enlighten us further?

Why should they be treaten equally?

There was an indiscretion, that all are punished in someway for.

As a result of that indiscretion, only one of the players failed to turn up for training. For which he is punished for.

You have to wonder what kind of help Gareth Hock is getting. Infuriating as it is, looking back over his last few years, none of it is the story of a man who's happy in his world.

On England's prospects, I've never been hugely optimistic, but this squad looks on paper a lot better than the 2008 squad, for instance. It is, in all honesty, the best squad we've picked for a few years IMO. It's a long step from there to actually beating the best team(s) in the world, but it looked like a start.

Yet at the weekend it produced the worst England or GB result I can remember (I've been watching since the late 80s, can anyone think of a worse one that I'm missing?).

I like being as optimistic as I can, and I'm looking forward to the tournament as a whole. But I am worried about England's chances, and the tournament needs England to do well (all world cus need a strong home nation to really take off).

Hopefully we get a bit of siege mentality setting in and they can at least produce a competitive performance at the weekend. I think the RFL have got the organisation going pretty well for the tournament (only fair to say that since I am so critical a lot of the time) and it would be a shame for the bubble to be burst by a horrible pasting on Saturday.

They were on the night before training, Hock missed training the others managed to make it. Hock got the boot.

Or something, whatever who cares

Me. I care. Alright? You got a problem with that? You want a piece of me? Is that it? Is that what this is all about?

They should all be knuckling down and preparing for a World Cup.

Makes you question the whole England set-up. In terms of commitment. The management capabilities of Steve Mac etc.

Hock deserves to walk a tighter tightrope than the rest (drugs ban...eye gouging etc) he's lucky to be around an international set-up. Lads blown it again.

Some of the responses make me laugh to be honest.

Previous visits to these shores from the Aussies and Kiwis, have also resulted in very similar scenarios, with players out drinking and getting into trouble, players ending up suspended.

Yet Southern Hemisphere is held in such high regard.

That is what is more double standard than Hock getting sent home and others not.

This sort of thing happens, simple as that. And it happens at club level often also. And it happens exactly the same with other sports.

It's now being handled by the management team, so it goes.

I don't think it's double standards. I hold the on-field ability of Australia and New Zealand's players in high regard. I have no idea how professional their set ups off the field are and I really don't care. If Australia can turn up and go on the pish every night and win the tournament, so be it. We are the third best team on the field, as such we need to pull out all the stops and the players have to be 100% focused and committed.

Clubs have all season to deal with it. I would be surprised if not turning up for training once or twice in the regular season was punished as severely as doing it the week before a big play-off game. I question whether anyone, however talented, who can't perceive a need to focus on the job this week has the right mentality to really deliver on that talent.

Remember here, that contrary to what the good Doctor at Salford suggests, nobody has been sacked here. Gareth Hock still has his job. He just doesn't get to represent his country at a World Cup. Which seems fair enough if he can't take it seriously.

I have no particular moral outrage about it, I just don't believe that we can afford a sloppy attitude if we're going to close the obvious gap to Aus and NZ. That means we need the right people in the right places. People who can't concentrate on the job are not the right people.

That's them, this is us. They are on another level, so maybe they can afford to chill out abit. We are trying to get up to their level, we can't afford to be f*cking around.

So you are confirming what I said, there is double standards. For them it is ok, for us it is not.

I will reserve judgement as to how they perform when it matters, rather than a twitter outbreak on days that don't matter.

As for Gareth Hock, I am of the opinion of many others, he's had his chances, if he is the one stupid enough to throw it away then so be it. I may not have had that same opinion had it being someone else, without the history. That said though, anyone who seriously believes Ferres in anyway compensates for the loss of Hock, seriously needs their head shaking.

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.