Quote: bren2k "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.)'"
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.