The stance I take is that if he has signed on a 5 year deal the terms must be fantastic for Wigan.

The concern is if he comes back and kills it and we only have a 1 year deal in place he could ask for a significant increase if he is to be retained.

I assume the deal put in place will be very beneficial to Wigan for a player of Hocks potential qualities, and when squeezing every penny out of the cap is crucial the longer deal may well prove to be an astute bit of business.

Good point. He could come back and play the kind of rugby we know he's capable of and is in a position to drive his wages up. I think Lenagan has enough about him to weigh up what the club and squad would benefit most from, but 5 years really would surprise me.

Thats how I take it to be.

If he came back and had a storming first year or two, then at the end of his initial contract he could probably command higher wages than he was on before. At least this way its likely that he'll be working his way up to his previous wage by the 3rd/4th/5th years of his contract.

Its more of an insurance policy if he comes back and is as fantastic as we hope he will be, because he won't stick around on pittance, but if he's attached to a 5 year deal at wages dictated on the clubs terms. I'm all for it.

If he does re-offend, the length of contract would be irrelevant.

I don't understand peopel saying he doesn't deserve this it's a risk etc.
He will have served his very lengthy ban, his punishment, out of work for 2 years. And getting things back on track and keeping fit is commitment that shows he's unlikely to mess it up again, and if he does, the length of the contract will be irrelevant because he'll get banned again. People talk about him as though he some sort of horrific criminal or scum, he made a mistake and is paying for it, at the end of the day it's better for Wigan to sign him on whatever deal than for another lub to take him, which they would. He's a fantastic player and if he's bothered to stay fit and is commited to get back then surely it's worth the 'risk'

Exactly my thoughts too. You can argue the case for and against the length of the contract (it seems a bit lengthy for me TBH) but the chances of him going off the rails again are irrelevant.

But giving him a shorter contract is in no way akin to extending his punishment beyond his sentence. ANY contract given to him even if it were one year is giving him another chance.

He does not need a five year contract to be given another chance.

Dave

That is an incredibly glib way to be looking at it IMO.

As a player banned for using drugs he doesn't deserve a five year deal on his return never mind what the financial terms are IMO. It just sends out the wrong message. If the club want to let him resurrect his career at Wigan then I would far rather see some sort of rolling contract (options for future years in the clubs favour) because that publicly shows the club hasn't just handed out a five year deal to a drug offender and is simply keeping its fingers crossed he does not re-offend.

Dave

Well, we don't know all the details of the contract (if in fact it exists, of course!), but from what we've seen of the way IL works, I'm pretty sure there will be all kinds of conditions attached, not least regarding his off-field behaviour.

I totally agree if this is true. It is a joke that a player that has just been banned for 2 years is rewarded with a 5 year deal. Even if you do not take into account his ban he has never had the best of attitudes with regards to training etc and that coupled with his off field behaviour mean this is just madness and it is a deal that he simply does not deserve. It also makes the club a laughing stock.

Also after 2 years out of the game no one really knows what he will be like as player and an awful lot of assumptions are being made as to how good he is going to be. We could be saddled with a dud for 5 years.

Nice of you to make an assumption.

can you not see the irony in your post???

Where?

I dont want to get into things but mabye he wasn't turning upto training cause of why he got banned

Look hocks been banned do you not think he **** himself thinking what is he going to do job wise?

He's no einstein when he comes back there is no way he's going to mess this 2nd chance he's got up

If Wigan hadn't signed him up, on a long term contract, other clubs would've surely come in for him.
Rather him running with us than against us.

All the comments around 5 year deals are speculation.

However, what isn't is the talent that Gareth Hock has as a RL player.

Imo far from performance enhancing, the gear he was on hampered his game - both in terms of the 80 mins on the pitch and more importantly the preparation that it prevented/hindered.

If he can come back clean, more mature and bring his skills to play, then a long term deal could prove to be a very astute piece of business by Wigan.

no matter what the deal lenght i'd hapily make sure hock i still on the wigan books when his ban ends, as people have said already, it stops unwanted attention from other clubs and if you ask me, i don't think hock would go anywhere else anyway as he has already said in post ban interviews how much he wants to make it up to the club and its fans.

the only way i can see hock NOT playing for wigan again is if there is a capello style coach at the club by then who won't take any $hit and therefore decides to let him rot in the reserves. which won't happen while maguire is here if you ask me.

Be fair Matty.... They are the "best of the rest"

If so the club needs to make the details public IMO or risk a bit of a PR disaster for the club and sport over re-employing a banned player on such a generous length of contract. It's just common sense that given five year contracts are rare and normally reserved for the very best prospects or players an announcement Hock simply got a five year deal thus bracketing him alongside players like Sam T and Mossop would raise eyebrows. People may say "stuff 'em" but PR is important especially in a game that likes to market itself as having a clean image.

If the club did this right they could get positive PR out of it and I think one way of doing so is NOT handing out a five year deal that is a simple straight-forward five year deal just because they can get him to play for peanuts.

Dave

Sorry to disagree DaveO but I think "risking a PR disaster" is a bit OTT. Also, as far as revealing details is concerned, why should they when no others are ever released? (My personal opinion is that all contracts should be in the public realm, though many would disagree). ATEOTD he will have committed the crime and done his time so that has to be the end of it IMO.

Am I surprised that he has reportedly been given a 5 yr deal? Yes I am, but not because of his previous offences. When he returns the slate is clean for me.

I don't think there is any crime that has ever been committed anywhere where having done the time means that is the end of it because mud sticks and it is just the way of the world. Hock will have this hanging over him for the rest of his career. The point that seems impossible to get across is despite that, giving him a contract of less than five years is not extending punishment beyond his sentence.

You can bet your house on it that if Hock gets a five year deal the headlines will be "Player banned for drugs rewarded with Five year contract".

Does the club want to be associated with headlines like this when it wants parents to place kids in their trust? I don't think it does because it makes the club look soft on drugs but the club can have it's cake and eat it if it handles this sensibly. Which is why despite detail of other contracts not being released they should with this one as it's hardly normal circumstances. By the way by this I mean they don't need to say how much he earns just what rules he must comply to to keep his job.



Clean slate or brushed under the carpet? IMO I think the clean slate is a bit of a utopian ideal. The world just isn't like that and if the club did as I suggested and offered him a deal with future years as options in the clubs favour with numerous conditions he must comply with to keep his shirt, I do not see this as extending his punishment.

At the same time it would show the club have taken him back "on license" if you like - and I don't see anything wrong with sending that kind of message out at all. Just the opposite.

Dave

It looks to me like Wigan have made efforts to look after the lad. As a result him signing is the least he can do really.

3 pages of crap have been deleted.

Quit the accusations, trolling and stay on topic. There will be bans.

Thats the key. If he wants it as an individual, the long break could be the best thing that could have happened to his career. It's up to him though.

Weighing up what we know so far, which is precious little in truth, I think the advantages of having Gareth Hock back on our books would outnumber the disadvantages.

For me, the moral issue expires once Hock has done his time. But that doesn't mean that Wigan wouldn't need to keep a careful check on his actitivities, which I'm sure they would as provisos seem to be IL's style when it comes to issuing contracts.

The supposed five-year thing would surprise me, I must admit. It seems like a lot, but if it's five years on a 'yearly approval' basis, then I don't see the real harm in it. If, for example, at the end of each year, Hock has to tick various boxes in terms of his behaviour in order to activate the next year, that would surely benefit everyone. Hock would have no choice but to stay on the straight and narrow, which would do him no harm at all. And Wigan would have an annual get-out clause if there were any problems. At the same time, they'd be seen as having imposed a form of parole on Hock - an extra little punishment, if you like, to indicate both to him and neutral observers that all has not yet been forgiven and that trust has to be re-earned.

Whether this would happen or not, I don't know. But in that respect I don't think a five-year deal would be as big a disaster as some fear. The alternative would be to offer him a shorter-term deal, also with parole-type provisos attached, and then watch him accept a better deal from someone else.

I think that's the brutal reality of it. To see the Wigan club subjected to taunts on message boards, and maybe even in the press, about being kind to drug-users would not be as painful to me as seeing Gareth Hock turning out against us in a Warrington or St Helens shirt.