By Christian Nicolussi and Billie Eder
It will be a case of David versus Goliath - at least where the size of their respective pay packets is concerned - when Matt Lodge, on a $1000-a-week train-and-trial deal with Manly, comes up against the Roosters $1.5million front-row pairing of Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins on Thursday.
Lodge was still with the Tricolours just a month ago before he was granted permission to chase another deal, and was quickly snapped up by the Sea Eagles.
Even though Manly could not accommodate him in their top-30 squad, the opportunity to play regular first grade - albeit for just $1000 a week - was too good to refuse.
This masthead can reveal it was star Sea Eagle Jake Trbojevic who first planted the seed with coach Anthony Seibold about plucking the unwanted Lodge out of Bondi.
Lodge, 28, will relish the opening exchanges in the middle of the Sydney Cricket Ground on Thursday night, with Waerea-Hargreaves and Collins never known to take a backward step.
Manly need a win to keep in touch with the top eight, while a loss for the Roosters will all but officially kill off their September dream. Seibold was well aware Lodge would try to make things personal.
Matt Lodge, the $1000-a-week Manly train-and-trialist, will clash with Roosters $1.45m pairing Jared Waerea-Hargreaves and Lindsay Collins.Credit: Fairfax Media
“We just need ‘Lodgey’ to go and do his job on Thursday and not get caught up with playing his old club, but it will be a great battle,” Seibold told this masthead.
“Lindsay is an established Origin player, Jared has been one of the top front-rowers in the game for almost a decade – it will be a top match-up between Lodgy, Toff Sipley and Jake, and Lindsay, Jared and Victor Radley.
“The way he played at the back end of last year was as good as I’ve ever seen him play. The Roosters got the best out of him in that second half of last year.
“He’s fitted in here really well, which I knew he would. His signature was good business for us. He was looking for an opportunity. Lodgy has already been good for us, and we’ve been good for him.
Matt Lodge and Jared Waerea-Hargreaves were teammates a month agoCredit: NRL Photos
“We’d love to keep him beyond this year, but even if there isn’t an opportunity, he’s putting himself in the shop window.
“Jake was the one who came to me with the idea of getting him. They had played NSW under-20s and the Australian Schoolboys together. He said, ‘Mate, why don’t you have a chat to him, he’s playing reserve grade for North Sydney’, so that actually sparked the idea.”
Roosters skipper James Tedesco knew Lodge from their playing days at the Wests Tigers, and said: “He’s going to want to go hard for sure, especially against Lindsay and Jared; I think he learned a lot off those guys, and he’s going to go hard.
“I know he’s going to want to prove a point for sure, it probably didn’t end here how he wanted it to, so we’ll be expecting a big performance from him, for sure. When he’s doing that [running off the back fence] he’s a top class front-rower.”
The Roosters will celebrate their 2013 premiership team before the game, ten years since they defeated Manly in the decider.
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