WALES SUNK BY MCCLEAN Help is on hand for shamed Hardaker
TROUBLED rugby league star Zak Hardaker has been offered the support of Gareth Hock after testing positive for cocaine. The Castleford full-back, axed for last weekend’s Grand Final defeat by Leeds, issued an apology yesterday after his failed test was confirmed by the Rugby Football League (RFL) and his club. Hock was caught using the drug in 2009 and served a two-year ban but rebuilt his career at Wigan and returned to the England squad.
Hock said: “I watched the Grand Final on Saturday and thought to myself, ‘I wonder what Zak’s going through now?’ He’ll be in a bad place at the moment and has probably taken himself away somewhere like I did.
“If Zak wants to chat about what I went through, I’d be more than happy to help him. I’m only at the other end of the phone.”
Having been axed from England’s World Cup squad, Hardaker now waits to discover the length of his ban.
The 2015 Man of Steel failed a test after the Tigers’ game against his old club Leeds, who he left after a number of disciplinary issues, on September 8 and has been provisionally suspended by the RFL.
“I would like to apologise to my team-mates, the staff and all fans for my enormous error of judgment,” he said.
“I was given an opportunity by this great club and in what has been one of the most important weeks in its history, I have let everyone at the club down. For that, I truly apologise.”