At full speed it barely looks like anything untoward happens and, crucially, Harrison doesn't complain. In slow-mo, Hock's not actually looking at his right hand or Harrison's head when he grabs the head and reefs it backwards. From that perspective it's very unlikely he's deliberately targeting the eyes. Certainly not in the manner you see in RU from time-to-time.

However, a very nasty, unsavoury incident and no place for it in RL. I expect a decent ban, a season-ender which will see him out of contention for the 4 Nations.

I think that says more about Harrison than it does about the smack head psycho



nonsense...he knew what he was doing..are you Madge in disguise by any chance

Ban him for life! ...or watch it at full speed and see that while it's dangerous contact, Hock makes no deliberate effort to gouge Harrison. No doubt, he should be banned for what was a crude effort to grab the guy's face/head and jerk it back (bad enough), but let's not go OTT because he's a Wigan player, and because he made some stupid decisions (for which he's served his two year ban, btw)

Not everyone would consider somebody that does a line at a mate's BBQ a smack head though would they. The psycho bit's right.

No, I wouldn't consider him a smack-head, especially as it wasn't smack he was ingesting.

I would however consider him too stupid to be allowed to continue in his job as a professional RL player. Anyone who earns a living from a sport that has a zero-tolerance policy on drugs, whether performance-enhancing or recreational, who then thinks it's OK to "do a line at a mate's barby", is certainly not the sort of person we need in the game.

So Hocks too thick to realise that people have eyes on the front of their face ?

8 match ban at least , who would want their kid playing a sport that doesn't treat that type of action as serious , eventually somebody will be blinded by that type of attack , then they might get tough on it

That's what I thought. I looks like he was trying to give him a bit of a facial, not delikberatley targeting the eyes.

So why were his fingers clawed?

So grabbing somebodys face , a face with eyes on it , maybe he should have shoved them down Harrisons throat and see what happened

Stop defending the muppet

Being reckless as to whether you're fingers are in his eyes and making a pulling motion, isnt that much better than deliberately putting your fingers in his eyes and making a pulling motion.

I know a player who was sine die for gouging and rightly so.....not sure why there should be any difference for professionals in fact it could be argued they should know better and act as role models for the game.

Now I love a bit of biff in the game but Hock is a cheap shot thug, gouged then punched as the player was getting up...Dirty scum bag 8 matches is not enough 8 years would be better!

The amateur game has the same zero tollerance on man-handling the officials, and Hock got away with that one.

No matter who the player is, or who he plays for, or even how deliberate his actions, an example must be made. The last thing we want is to get into a situation where more eye contact is seen because somebody got off lightly.

Rubbish, just watched it again. You can see his grubby fingers searching for the eye sockets to get leverage.

Its like CSI Wilderspool on here

The key question is was Hock deliberately trying to place his fingers into Harrison’s eyes to do damage? My feeling is that he was pulling at his face rather than gauging

Was it dirty, stupid, reckless and dangerous – absolutely. He should get a top end ban of 6-8 games. But that action is different to somebody deliberately pushing his fingers into somebody’s eyes in order to do serious damage

Maybe I’m being naive and just cannot accept that anybody would deliberately try to gouge an opponent (I’m well aware it happens of course)

If he did deliberately gouge Harrison I would have no hesitation in banning him for life... a far more serious offence than taking a recreational drug in my opinion