Hock. It's pretty clear cut he's done it. So what happens here? Make an example or somehow make an excuse for it?

Example.

A 10 game ban minimum would be just about right for the eye gouging plus 1 game for striking.

IMO that's not making a example of him, it is just what should happen regardless of the player or the team he plays for.

Example, there are no excuses for it.

It's wigan so very little action

They simply need to match the RFU.

Ten match ban . Suspended until end of 2018 season .

Needs to be a lengthy ban. No place for this behaviour in RL.

Incidently, the RFL view biting the same as gouging (E-F offence 4-8 matches or 8+ depending on severity). I would have thought gouging, with the potential to seriously injure someone, would have been viewed as more serious (not saying that biting isn't disgusting as well.)

Does anyone have any idea if this has happened before and what the outcome was?
If it's as clear cut as described then it has to be wosre that what Howell got for biting because although both a sh#*-house antics Gouging is the worse of the 2 imo.

A London Skolars player was banned for 4 games last year for gouging.

I think he should be punished 'old school' stylie and made to do load of lines...

Just when you thought rugby players couldn't possibly get any dafter up pops Gareth Hock.

No way should Hock be available until sometime 2012 after that.

He will say he didn`t know what he was doing as he was on drugs at the time.

Right . That's the ref's excuse for letting him stay on the pitch . What's Hock's excuse ?

Yep that's roughly what I was thinking too.

Biting might seem less severe when compared to gouging, but you need to consider that if you successfully break skin, you run a severely high risk of transferring disease. Let's say for example that a player is HIV positive, he might not even know it at the time, that's no reason for him not to play the sport, but it's the kind of thing that can be transferred with such transgressions.

I think the RFL are absolutely right to see it as serious as gouging, it's their classification of bans (4-8games for Grade E, 8+ games for Grade F), which I think probably need to be reviewed.

Hock another cheap shot merchant and coward............

That's nonsense - HIV cannot be spread through saliva and therefore the risk from a bite is actually low. In any case if we're talking about worst cases then eye gouging carries an unacceptably high risk of permanently damaging a persons sight

As someone who's had both a scratched cornea and a broken leg, I can tell you which one is more painful and worrying. And that's just a scratch that healed in a couple of weeks.

These are the Rugby Union sanctions for eye-gouging:

Lower end: up to 12-week ban.
Mid range: up to 18-week ban.
Top end: greater than 24-week ban.
Maximum sanction: 156-week (3 year) ban.

Although I would say, if you can be certain of intent, then there's a case for not allowing eye-gougers onto a sports field ever again.

But the risk is there, and there are other transferrables that can also cause health problems, HIV was just the one that came immediately to mind. Biting another human being is disgusting, but maybe it's just me who looks upon it so unfavourably?



No doubts from me that the act of gouging is barbaric. We're about to find out just how much teeth the current disciplinary model at the RFL actually have. I've now seen a replay of the incident, and I don't believe it to be a deliberate act (Grade F?), but it was certainly careless/reckless, and still has an unacceptably high risk of injury so I expect it to be a Grade E offence and could carry a 4-8 game suspension if he's found guilty by the panel.

I'd follow Julien Dupuy's ban length personally. 26 weeks. So that's make Hock available again sometime around next year's Challenge Cup Final?

The ARL gave Les Boyd 18 months.

Mind you, he came over here and played for Wire

Wasn't that after he had just finished a 12 month ban for breaking Daryl Brohman's jaw?

Now this guy is scum.