Gareth Hock to Wire?

Quote: sally cinnamon "I think some people have short memories on Hock. He was a good player who carried a weak Wigan team for a while, I remember thinking that if he could clean up the indiscipline in his game he wasn't far off being able to be a Farrell-like figure. If he had signed for us a couple of years ago I would have said it was second only to Morley as a top signing.

He does have a big task now though. It has made it harder for him that Wigan have become a top side without him, its like if Iestyn Harris had come back from union and gone to Leeds. He will find it hard to fit back into the Wigan unit that used to think of him as a main player but has got used to playing without him, so his status will be different. We've been hearing all this stuff about how he's been training the house down and determined to make up for lost time which I'm sure he is, but he won't get too much time, and there will be lots of pressure on him because he's coming back from a ban, he will always be seen as a tainted character now.

I will reserve judgement and wouldn't write him off because there's no doubt he was well ahead of most British forwards, of his generation of young players that came through about 8/9 years ago I thought he was the best in the country.

BUT the game has a habit of leaving players behind who have had time out - look at all the guys who went and did a stint in union and came back, Harris, Henry Paul, Chev Walker and so on, they never had the same impact second time around.'"

I'd agree 100% with that. I would imagine that when Hock comes back that Wigan will give him a fairly low paid contract un til the end of the season, with the option of a far better long term contract if he reaches the heights he was at prior to his ban.