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.

Anyone can drink beer, there is no skill or achievement needed. Hardly anyone gets the chance to play at the highest level of their chosen sport in it's biggest competition. I would have binned the lot of them and replaced them with guys who understand this.
They should have been all flogged to death in training for losing to Italy anyway, not allowed a night out and a f****g lie in.

Of course you need to differentiate the player from the offence. You can not have a team sport where one player is handled differently to another for an offence.

The issue here though is that Hock is incorrect to believe that the drinking and the sleeping in are seperate. The sleeping in will have being deemed by the managment, and quite rightly, as a consequence of drinking.

As long as the management would have dealt the same way with any other player who did that same thing (drinking and then slept in and avoiding training), then it has being handled correctly.

Well said.

It really is quite sad....the quite surprising regular BBC build up to the competition did actually spark some semblance of interest in our family ....then came this, after the earlier Italy embarrassment. At least the match did give a degree more credibility to the concept of a "world" game, but conversely diminishes England's pretence at being a true potential winner.

If England collapse against Oz it will set the game back in this country even further than it already is ; this after the BBC is finally apparently marketing the competition and game far more than it has ever done previously.

Well done all.

On the other hand, maybe part of the reason Tomkins is one of the best in the world is that for all his silly antics on the field, he turns up sober for training and puts the work in. Maybe.

Why cant you have a team sport were one player is handled differently to another? Isnt this what happens when a player comes before a disciplinary after an offence on the field of play? You have to take previous misdemeanours into account when handing out punishment hence the EGP that Briers used before their semi final game. Same thing happened at Saints a few years back with the Long/Gleeson betting scandal, same offence but different punishments. That's life and Hock should have been aware that no matter what the other sheep did he should definitely have stayed at the shepherd's side as his previous was always going to be brought up.

Has his previous been brought into this by the management though? He is the only one who missed training & a medical. No-one, apart from in the media, has mentioned it.

Maybe Hock was worried what the medical may show up?

That his skull is, infact, completely empty?

How seriously are some of the players [ireally[/i taking this when they go out for drinks after an embarassing loss just a week before the tournament kicks off for real, when the coaching staff have put a drinking ban until after the aussie game?