Register a free account today to become a member of the world's largest Rugby League discussion forum! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Brisbane Broncos centre Justin Hodges a top bloke but must not be allowed to face Cowboys in NRL grand final
Date: September 28, 2015 - 1:00PM
by Andrew Webster
Chief Sports Writer, The Sydney Morning Herald
The greatest myth this side of Seaworld is Justin Hodges isn't a good person.
This column has an enduring memory of our misunderstood Queensland friend: after the Kangaroos beat England in the Four Nations final, Hodges approached the reporters on the tour in the bar of the team hotel and bought them a beer.
A player buying a reporter a beer? The defence rests, Your Honour.
No, for all the NSW hatred around the veteran centre – especially when he's wearing a maroon jersey, mouthing off like he did that night when he told Danny Buderus he was the second-best hooker in the game - the truth is most players like him.
Annoying lunatic on the field, affable person off it. That's the story of Justin Hodges. Should he be allowed to play in the grand final so he can win a premiership in his final match?
Of course not.
He will contest his grade-one dangerous throw charge at the judiciary on Tuesday night, and it will barely raise an eyebrow if the panel of three former players clear him to play because they know what's at stake.
Then again, a panel of former players did ban George Burgess for flinging a water bottle into the ground).
But none of this should matter.
Doubtless, the Broncos' legal team will show frame after frame of the incident like it's recreating the JFK assassination. It will roll out similar examples of tackles throughout the season that have attracted no charge.
But the compelling evidence will remain for all to see: that Hodges grabbed the left leg of Roosters back-rower Aidan Guerra, and then helped ram him head-first into the ground. Naughty, Hodgo. Naughty.
Showing that Queenslanders stick together, Guerra has admitted he "was playing for the penalty" and that his Maroons teammate should not miss the grand final. The "Free Hodgo" campaign is underway.
Granted, the tackle wasn't in the same postcode as Issac Luke's dangerous throw on Roosters star Sonny Bill Williams in last year's preliminary final, which cost the Souths hooker a grand final appearance and premiership.
Hodges' tackle was an accident but it was still dangerous. The modern-day edict for defenders is to grab a ball carrier's leg – "split the legs" – and put him off balance. The issue is that sometimes the attacking player face-plants.
The argument that he's going to miss a grand final and this will be his last match doesn't wash. That's not how justice works in this town. Hodges will have to take solace that he finishes career with nothing left to prove.
Broncos coach Wayne Bennett adores Hodges, who came back to the coach and the club in 2005 after three years of sin at the Roosters.
Bennett loves a problem child. He put Hodges back together again and they went on to win a premiership together in 2006. Hodges earned his first Kangaroos jumper soon after and became an Origin mainstay.
He famously tried to fight the entire NSW team in that fiery Origin dead rubber in 2009, but beneath all that anger is an often unseen respect for Hodges.
At most Blues opposed sessions in the last few years, the name you hear yelled out the most isn't Thurston, Cronk or even Smith. It is Hodges, because there are few players as lethal out of dummy-half.
Despite this, the good rugby league folk of NSW will want Hodges rubbed out. He's about as popular in Sydney as a parking cop.
With two Queensland sides playing in a grand final for the first time, NSW is suffering from relevancy deprivation syndrome. It's like being a Kardashian without Instagram.
Fear not, Sydneysiders. There are other reasons to tune in on Sunday night apart from Cold Chisel belting out Flame Trees as part of the pre-match entertainment. This is the grand final the NRL had to have for two reasons.
First, there's the football. Two aggressive packs that remind me of monster trucks: enormous and mobile and they crush smaller trucks that get in their way. If Jason Taumalolo isn't related to a monster truck, who is?
Meanwhile, immortality beckons – not just in the eyes of Rugby League Week but maybe even God himself – if Johnathan Thurston can lead the Cowboys to their breakthrough premiership.
On the other side of the trench, though, stands Ben Hunt, whose form must have not only awakened Queensland selectors but Kangaroos and Maroons halfback Cooper Cronk, too. And Daly Cherry-Evans.
If anyone can find the hidden stud farm that's spitting out world-class playmakers up there, please let Laurie Daley know.
The whimsical way Hunt and Anthony Milford are playing footy reminds me of Andrew and Matthew Johns at Marathon Stadium in the 1990s, when they just played.
Aside from the footy, what appeals most about this grand final is it doesn't have any anger. Haters are going to hate, it's been said, but not in this game. Not from this vantage point, anyway.
There will be some chatter about Bennett and how the Cowboys once snubbed him as coach because "I was too old", and also his recent attack on Thurston over the potential boycotting of the Dally Ms.
Watch for the Bennett smokescreen this week, sports fans. No coach creates a diversion for his players like the 65-year-old around big games.
But this is all small fry compared to what might've been had the Storm sneaked through to play the Broncos, with Bennett's fallout with Craig Bellamy and Cameron Smith's anger with Channel Nine all issues that still linger.
There would've been talk all week about something called "the wrestle", too. Instead, we can just focus on the footy and Chisel … as soon as they work out what to do with Hodges.
