Seen the incident this morning. The ball is long gone, but he makes no attempt to avoid a collision at all, in fact he seems to drop his shoulder barge through him. It's a shame because he's a very talented player, but his stupidity far outweighs that.

It's probably is just me but I don't see much in the Hock incident, I don't see a deliberate attack on the ref and I certainly don't see where a 7 match ban has come from. Unless he has owned up and there is absolute proof he has attacked the ref.

You see players with broken jaws, broken cheek bones, damaged vertebrae etc with players causing these incidents getting a lot less regarding bans, some don't even get banned.

To be fair, as a player its kind of expected you get those kind of hits - a match official should NEVER expect or have to deal with that kind of thing !!

Only if it's deliberate, I agree.

For me, it certainly didn't look like he was trying to avoid to collision and even leaned into it. Did he pick the lad up, say sorry and dust him off afterwards?

Looked to me like he was crouched down with his weight going forward after seeing the ref at the last second, could have easily been off balance. And by the way I have no connection with Salford or Hock and would be thinking the same if was any player.

You'll get nowhere on here trying to argue that there might be some element of doubt - the lynch mob have had their hanging now, there's no room for reasonableness.

I was at the match and like most others saw nothing untoward at the time, on seeing the video it does look bad, though how anyone can judge intent from it beats me.

FWIW though I think the officials have to be protected as far as is humanly possible, so a punishment was inevitable and sadly for Mr Hock his past sins will haunt him for the rest of his career.

Not forgetting the players are conditioned for the impact, the refs are not, Bentham and his leg break case in point.

These Wigan fans make me laugh regarding Hock.

When he behaved like a k*obhead while at the Piedome and got punished for it they defended him and branded it a witch hunt against their club.

Now he's still acting like pr*ck whilst playing for another club they can't give him enough stick.

I haven't seen any lynch mob, and the disciplinary seem to have taken pretty much exactly the same view of what they saw as most posters on here.

As no case has yet occurred where an in-brain flight recorder is available to record what a player's intentions are, the disciplinary have to view the video, listen to the evidence, and make a decision. In saying what you are, you've done the same thing! You're saying on what there is, YOU don't feel able to conclude his intention was to collide with the ref. You are doing what the disciplinary and everyone else is, but just coming to a different result. As it is plainly impossible to ever KNOW what anyone's actual intentions actually ever were, it can only be done by making an evidence-based judgement.


Sadly but rightly, yes. Like Suarez's teeth, when you have form for doing it before, excuses for doing it again wear inevitably thinner.

I remember a member of staff/minder at Wigan describing GH, during his long lay off, as a level one learner. Teachers would describe him as having special needs. My mate who works as a prison officer likes to think of him as a future client. As he is 30 his self destructive behaviour is not likely to go away and I fear for him when he loses the disciplined structure of the sport.

With his IQ Gareth hock would probably be classed as borderline mentally retarded.

I think when he retires he'll end up as a homeless drug addict.

With regard to the length of the ban I think it has more to do with the fact that this is the third offence of a similar nature and the ban is increased with each one that takes place. Last year he received four matches for a similar thing at Widnes.

With regard to the intent... If I'm about to run into someone accidentally and notice at the last minute I tend to put my hands out in front of me to try and stop the collision. Seems almost a natural reaction to everyone this. I certainly don't drop the shoulder. Odd odd behaviour if you do.

Just to add on this... in no way should he be driven out of the game if that's what some are suggesting. Rightly so there should be appropriate penalties for behaviour of this nature and 7-8 games seems about right.