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?

Fair question.

I'd go with DHM's suggestion of binning the lot of them and bringing in people who are at least committed to the cause and have some sense of what it should mean to represent your country in a World Cup.

I refuse to select any of my 11 year olds for competitive tournaments if they have been on the pop all Saturday night.
I caught the buggers all hiding in our team tent scoffing chocolate cake just before our festival plate final a couple of weeks ago and I was not happy. I couldn't axe all of them so I told them they could only finish the cake if they won.
They won.

Winning cake tastes better than losing cake.

Mmm, I like winning flavour.

I bet Gareth Hock doesn't even like cake. It's a scandal.

Me, I love cake.

What were we talking about?

Exactly. On the relatively successful '92 tour the players imposed their own alcohol ban. Mind you, I did see them all on the p[ii[/iss around Sydney harbour shortly after announcing this.

What people seem to forget is 18 players did impose their own alcohol ban. 6 went for a few drinks and by all accounts 5 of them kept it light and were responsible enough to not get leathered. They got home, got to bed, got to camp, got to training.

1 idiot didn’t.

I have no problem with a player having a beer or two a week before the game. There is an obvious problem with 1 player who couldn’t keep it together. But its unfair to focus on him and think of him as representative of the squad when he is an isolated incident.

On a more positive note, there's a superb article by Jamie Peacock on the BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/24475643

On a more positive note, there's a superb article by Jamie Peacock on the BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/24475643

Spot on.We are talking about a 30 year bloke not being able to get himself out of bed at a civilised time in the morning FFS!

I do have a problem with people going out for a drink in the run up to a big tournament.
The affects of alcohol on training up to 48 hours after consumption are well known and documented. Although not rocket scientists the players should know this too. The medical staff will be able to explain to them if needed. In order to make an impact every player needs to be at 100%. Hocks refusal to understand that its just missing a couple of 10 minute sessions shows he does not have the right mental attitude to be involved at the tournament. THere are thousands of blokes who would swap position with him, and would give up alcohol for a few weeks in order to achieve something great. Unfortunately, not for the first time, Hock has shown he can't handle temptation and focus on the long term goal

I think that would be fine if there wasn't (as seems to have been the case) a [uspecific[/u instruction from the management about not drinking until after Saturday. I have no problem with the odd beer (I don't think isolating people in a confined camp, however luxurious, a la England Soccerball in 2010 is a great idea) during a tournament, but they were specifically told not to, and went and did it anyway. Which disrespects the coaching staff and the rest of the squad who managed to do as they were told.

Sort of depends how much alcohol we're talking about. If they had a couple of beers they wouldn't notice any effect in training.

A skinful on the other hand... I have not very fond memories of going out on a Friday night lash a few years ago, and doing a 10k race for my club on Sunday morning. I felt fine. Top gear was, simply put, not there. I did OK, but it probably cost me a minute to 90 seconds. The sort of small margin that counts in elite level sport. If you're a few % off your game against the Aussies, that will add up to a lot of points over 80 minutes.

and if they were 48hrs before the game i would agree. But they were an entire week away from a game.

The effects of alcohol consumption are well known, but it is also dependant on how much alcohol is consumed and this is my problem with it. Because Hock was a moron and had too many, overslept and missed training we assume that everyone else was out getting leathered aswell.

It is more likely that for the ‘others’ going out consisted of 2 maybe 3 pints, a figure which a week before a game isn’t going to make any difference. Because Hock couldn’t keep a lid on it and has tried to bring his team-mates down with him they are all of a sudden out on the town doing shots of sambucca and downing pints until sunrise. In fact even from Hocks description some of those 6’s transgressions could have gone no further than a glass of wine with dinner.

I mostly agree, but from what I know (which is limited I admit) even a small amount of alcohol has an impact on performance, even if only very small. To play at our best, we have to train at our best. And that means no alcohol. Its selfish to let the rest of his team mates down. The same applies to the others

Not sure that's true. Alcohol doesn't really trigger toxin responses at very low levels. Some people will even tell you, for example, that a pint of wheat beer is a good recovery drink (it out-performed lucozade in a test somewhere, though I am dubious about the methods). When you exceed a blood concentration that triggers your body to treat it as a toxin, then you start to see some effect. One of the principal problems is dehydration. Again, that doesn't really take effect until that toxic response is triggered, at which point your body's first response is to flush the stuff out through your renal system.

Everybody triggers that response at different points too, so it isn't easy to specify a number of units. But I don't believe most people would see any adverse reaction to a pint of decent beer or cider or a glass of wine in an evening, for instance. Rubbishy plastic mass-produced beer also contains other additives which are not suggested for an athlete's diet, which is a separate issue.

I'm splitting hairs though, as I agree it was selfish, they breached a direct instruction and showed a lack of respect and self discipline.

Quote ="craigizzard"On a more positive note, there's a superb article by Jamie Peacock on the BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/24475643'" Great column. Sent shivers down my spine at the end

Quote ="craigizzard"On a more positive note, there's a superb article by Jamie Peacock on the BBC website: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-league/24475643'" Great column. Sent shivers down my spine at the end