Whats everyones thoughts?

Just been reading the topic on the VT and i find it amazing how we can be so biased about our team. We are all the same i suppose. but it just makes good reading.
To listen to some Wigan fans Hock is almost a choirboy as opposed to the thick loon everyone else sees.
McGennis is scum apparently for hitting a bloke with his back to him but yet Mossop hits him from behind/the side while he is fighting someone else and he is a legend for defending his team mate?
Saints fans see nothing wrong with what LMS did yet Wigan lay all the blame with him and claim "he was at it all the game".
These were the same fans who were slating the Cas fans trying to defend Chase the other week. Coming out with the old "If one of our players had done that i wouldnt try to defend them" line. Blinkered, the lot of us i tell ya!!

For what its worth i think they will get the following:
Hock - 2 games (depending how this clashes with the exiles game!)
Tusson - 1 game
McGennis - 2 games
Mossop - 1 game
LMS - Nothing

10/15 years ago, a yellow apiece for Hock & LMS to try and calm things down.

It was meant to be the showcase match of a great weekend and ended up as a scene straight out of a pub car park at closing time. Not a good advert for the game and further proof, if any were needed, that Gareth Hock is a germ - I said the other week that he was a ticking time bomb that would blow up in Wigan's face - I was right.

I agree that LMS has no case to answer. He didn't start it. He was trying to pack down and stood his ground when Hock was being silly. Then Hock threw one. LMS seemed to just wrestle but either way it should have stopped there.

I don't know which player it was at the back of the group who blind sided someone but they should get more. Is that McGennis? He pulled a player out then waited until he turned away then got one in. Cowardly in my opinion but that doesn’t matter from RL tribunal is concerned. The issue there is that the fight was done and he started it up again. They don’t like that. The guy he hit was in mu opinion defending himself so may get a ban but should be less.

It was Mossop who blind sided someone and ran off again behind his pals, wouldn't of been able to see who it was if it wasn't for recording the game.

The general view seems to be that Magennis slotted Tuson on the back of the head as he walked away, prompting Tuson to go off like a Tasmanian devil and Mossop to give him a sly dig from deep cover - that's how he ended up on his jacksie.

I expect all of the above to get a ban and LMS to face no action; the RFL should be furious that a couple of thugs managed to spoil a showcase weekend of mostly excellent RL, although I doubt they can reflect damage to the reuptation of the game in their sentencing, mores the pity.

yes that's what I meant. Magennis should be picked out for me. I know Tuson will get a ban for the number of strikes but Magennis started something there that would never have happened without his intervention. I probably wouldn't have been quite as adept as he was but I think I would have reacted aggresively to someone blind siding me like that.

Yes I was talking about the last shot when it all had calmed down a bit. Whatever went down though it was all very needlessly ugly and it was no surprise that Hock was in the middle of it.

Lee Mossop: Rule: 15.1(a) Detail – Punching Grade B MRP - Referred to tribunal (1-2 matches)

Chris Tuson: Rule: 15.1(a) Detail – Punching - Sustained Grade C MRP - Referred to tribunal (2-3 matches)

Gareth Hock: Rule: 15.1(a) Detail – Punching Grade B MRP - Referred to tribunal (1-2 matches)

Shaun Magennis: Rule: 15.1(a) Detail – Punching – Violent/Sustained Grade D MRP - Referred to tribunal (3-5 matches)

Louie McCarthy-Scarsbrook: Player becomes involved in confrontation with opponent but does not throw punches. MRP - NFA

My prediction -

Lee Mossop: 1 match

Chris Tuson: 3 matches

Gareth Hock: 2 matches (although I think it might only be 1... lets see!)

Shaun Magennis: 4 matches (if they give Tuson 3... if they give Tuson only 2 then I think Magennis will only get 3)

LMS has no case to answer... which is obvious to the unbiased!

i dont understand these folk who say 'i dont like it when they fight' 'its not what we want to see'

i might be on my own here but i love watching a good tear up, in fact half the reason i watch origin is cos it could kick off at any given moment.

more fights bring back the Biff

To be fair, I don't think it will do the sports reputation any harm - maybe even have the opposite effect, i'm sure there were plenty of fans of other sports who tuned in who enjoyed the biff more than the confusing (in their uneducated eyes) action on the field.

If there had been any spitting/biting/gouging then I would agree, but punch ups happen even in the other code and it doesn't seem to have upset their caviar swilling fans, so hopefully no harm done eh?

It doesn't matter whether people like it or not - the fact is that the modern game can't be seen as an opportunity for tatooed northern thugs to beat the crap out of each other; we struggle for a credible media presence as it is, without giving the yawnion biased media posh boys another opportunuity to ridicule RL.

The other baffling thing about this particular tear-up is that it took place in what had become a dead rubber, thanks to Saints capitulation; if it was a fiercely fought, passionate local derby and two props had a bit of a dust-up, things might look a bit different - as it was, it just looked like a braindead thug deliberately starting a fight because he doesn't know any other way.

I predict a sticky end for Hock - he's an anachronism who seems totally unable to control his emotions; as Barrie Mac once said, "you've got to have fire in your belly and ice in your mind - if the fire in your belly melts the ice in your mind, you're in trouble." Partridge-esque it may be, but apt in this case (and his.)

so nobody thinks 3 red cards was a bit of an overreaction by Thaler?

I thought incidents like this were what the sin bin was for. If it hadn't have kicked off I don't think Hock would have been red carded - and i am not his biggest fan. Think actions of Magennis were possibly the only one that may have merited red.

Lighten up - it's part of the game. Sorry if you don't like it or your frightened of upsetting this mystical set of fans who will walk away at the first sign of a fight.

Who the hell cares what the Union based media think, have we not moved on from that - why so insecure. Anyway Union has just as many fights and good luck to them.

You must be new to the game or have a very selective memory, because it's nothing like as bad as it was in the 1970's and before.

Football has been made unbearably soft and tiresome by this OTT reaction to a bit of biff, no way should we let our game be ruined by the same set of Guardian reading muesli troffers.

Thuggery and a punch up on the paddock are not the same.

And this was thuggery; totally unnecessary, completely unprovoked and utterly pointless given the situation in that particular game.

I don't buy this insouciant attitude towards the media - like it or not, the game needs more positive media exposure and given that the Independent chose to re-hash the Hull FC drug scandal the day before the MW kicked off, it's easy to see the mountain we have to climb in that respect.

It's not the 1970's any more; the world and the game has moved on - unlike some RL fans, I don't think that's a bad thing.

Hock deserves all he gets coming to him, he started it by using his nut before losing it and chinning

LMS

Never done Ice Hockey, Aussie Rules, American Football and many other games any harm.

Nobody cares that much except you and a few busy bodies. Life isn't lived in a sanitised bubble.

If I were the Chinese or any other predatory nation I wouldn't build a big Army. I'd just wait until we become that soft we will just roll over for fear of hurting someone - 5 of them in a Nissan should be enough.

I'm no fighter, never have been - but I'm glad some are - even when on occasions it's not pretty or justified. Young men in those situations will lose it occasionally.

Only Hock is a genuine issue - mainly because of his off field activities and tendency to be snide. Even then he's hardly Hannibal Lecture. It's a hard sport and wrong doing must be punished by the authorities and that is where it ends. No need for these public examinations and outcry's every time we have a spat.

I won't comment on the generalised rant about going soft - that way lies madness.

In sporting terms - a bit of biff in RL should be like going all-in at poker; use it sparingly and only when the situation demands. This one didn't - it just looked pointless, gratuitous and a bit seedy.

That's all I have to say on the matter.

I disagree with the comment on other sports. Ice hockey is played by big rough thugs. General opinion as I see it is that you wouldn't want your kids playing.
Aussie rules has cleaned up its act as was also getting bad rep.
American Football you don't get brawls and as with our game it costs so much money to lose a game you don't want your players off the field.

I played both codes and was involved with plenty of biff but I never went out looking for it. When you get to that stage you need to pack the game in. You are not a useful part of the team.
Tough - yes
Be able to defend yourself and you team - hell yes
Be a thug - not in my opinion.

If you bring back thuggery you will lose the
skillful players and just have a bunch of big lads fighting. That's what UFC is for.

I watch American Football and you never see punch ups anymore haven't done for years, even in the 80's it wasn't something that you saw a lot of and like you say AFL have cleaned up it's act big time the last decade. Agree with everything else as well.

There's some fairies posting on here. Does anyone watch the State of origin it happens all the time. More than likely due to desire to win which we sometimes don't show enough of. Let em go at it I say hitting from behind I don't condone but if both square up let em do the business.


Super league is played by men not ballet dancers.

Not sure they were red card offences though I'd go with Hock getting one as he instigated the whole thing for no reason whatsoever and I'd have liked to see LMS get a chance to throw a few back but Hock wasn't letting go for love nor money. As for the rest it was handbags really with no harm done except to the Saints lad's ego when he got put on his backside! I think the odd brawl only makes people more interested in our sport and sets it apart from football which is an absolute joke these days. The worst thing about the Saints Wigan game was how one sided it was awful game to finish a very good weekend.

Dont agree with just dirty play, like high shots, because they are just cheap. A few forwards going to toe to toe? Don't see a problem. I enjoyed it in Origin. I enjoyed it on Sunday.

LMS was winding Hock up, rolling his head all over him, and it worked.

Trust Gareth Hock to start a brawl in a game Wigan had sewn up! Hock, Tuson & Mossop could all pick up a few games each. Might be te difference between finishing 1st & 2nd or 3rd!

Who cares

it's not our problem. I only wish some of ours would show some anger at times

I await the arrival of our friend Jonh, he'll no doubt put us all straight.