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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spor...aQbIY.facebook
Some interesting background which explains a lot.........
Too few promises are kept these days, which is what makes Western Force captain Matt Hodgson exceptional in more ways than one.
It was 2005 and Hodgson’s rugby career, such as it was, was at the make-or-break stage, with the emphasis on break. He had reached that critical juncture where he either kicked on or was kicked out, having just endured three miserable seasons in succession. No sooner had he recovered from an ankle reconstruction than he was undergoing a shoulder reconstruction.
So desperate was he to get back into the game that the moment the surgeon gave him the all-clear, he put his hand up for sevens duty, was sent to Singapore and promptly was taken out - and not to dinner – by a huge Fijian rival. This time it was his knee that needed rebuilding. Even without this litany of woe, Hodgson would have been doing it tough. He was in the Waratahs squad but stuck behind Phil Waugh. On reflection, not a good place to be given that Waugh was the NSW captain and had a history of coming off the field only on those exceedingly rare occasions when he had actually lost a limb.
Worse, there was nowhere else to go. Australia had only three Super Rugby teams at that point and George Smith was filling the No 7 jersey for the Brumbies while up in Queensland David Croft was the Liam Gill of his day – one of the best flankers in the world but still ranked only third in Australia.
But then, a chink of light. Rugby WA had just been given a Super Rugby expansion licence and by happy coincidence Hodgson’s own manager, John Fordham, also happened to manage the newly appointed coach of the Western Force, John Mitchell. Not that this guaranteed any more than a foot in the door and by the time Hodgson actually entered the room, Mitchell had filled every place on his roster, save one. Inevitably, that put him in a position to be rather choosy.
Hodgson gave the interview his best shot, making a very positive impression on Mitchell. Still, the former All Blacks coach had a host of outstanding players all clamouring for that last spot and nothing was settled when he and Hodgson shook hands at the end of it. Mitchell, by this stage, had been interviewing players non-stop for days, building his team from scratch. “You look like you’ve earned a drink,” said Fordham, a convivial fellow wont to say such things, but as the two of them tootled off to the nearby Lord Dudley Hotel, Mitchell’s phone chirped.
It was a text from Hodgson, thanking him for the opportunity to speak with him. But it was the rest of the message that hit home to Mitchell. “If you pick me, I promise you I’ll never let you down,” Hodgson vowed.
In that moment, the Western Force gained its final foundation player, the one who would go on to become the first to play 100 Super Rugby matches for the club, a milestone Hodgson will reach tonight at the Force Field, nib Stadium, against the Melbourne Rebels. Not only has Hodgson been true to his word, he’s been true to it long after Mitchell himself moved on. The Western Force has played only 115 matches in its short history and Hodgson has played 99 of them, a figure that is all the more remarkable considering David Pocock played 69 times for the club, pretty much monopolising the seven jersey whenever he was fit during his seven seasons there.
But Hodgson is an intelligent footballer, as sharp a player as his razor is blunt. It didn’t matter whether Pocock – who since has moved on to the Brumbies – was playing, he would simply make himself so indispensable that a position had to be found for him.
That’s still the way it is. If the seven is taken, he will wear six. Or eight. It doesn’t matter, really, because no one can tell one number from another at the bottom of the ruck and that’s where Hodgson is always to be found.
If Charles Schulz hadn’t introduced Pig Pen into his Peanuts comic strip way back in 1954, you’d swear the character was based on Hodgson. That frantic flapping of hands you see from match officials whenever Hodgson approaches them isn’t the referees waving away the Force captain. It’s them making a hole in his Pig Pen-like personal dust cloud so they can converse with him. But while Hodgson might have questions to ask of referees from time to time, the one he would really like answered is the one he put to Robbie Deans in 2011: Why? Specifically, why would Deans select a World Cup squad with only one specialist seven in it - Pocock?
Hodgson had figured in two Tests that year, on top of the four he had played in the previous year, so he was an established and respected squad member. Yet Deans decided he could take the Wallabies into the World Cup with only one specialist openside flanker.
It wasn’t a case of everyone being wise after the event. The announcement of the World Cup squad was met with widespread bafflement and sure enough, everyone’s worst fears were realised when injury forced Pocock out of the pool match against Ireland. Sean O’Brien had a field day at the breakdown, the Wallabies lost and in the process their World Cup campaign jumped tracks. Where previously they had been gifted an All Blacks-free run to the final, now they had to meet the host nation in the semis. Ugly.
It perhaps would be an exaggeration to suggest that for want of Hodgson, a World Cup finals appearance was lost - but not by much. As it happened, Hodgson was in the crowd that day at Eden Park, having earned a late call-up after Wycliff Palu’s hoped-for quick recovery from injury failed to materialise. But he never played in the tournament and now, with the next World Cup barely a year away, he expects Ewen McKenzie won’t be needing him either.
“When you’ve got sevens like Michael Hooper and Liam Gill, it’s in the best interests of Australian rugby to develop the younger players, not turn to an old bloke like me,” Hodgson says. “Still, if I get the call-up, I’ll be there.”
Realistically, Hodgson knows six caps is all he’s ever going to get. But that’s six more than he ever thought he’d earn. When he made the trip over to Perth in 2005, he was thinking all he wanted was one Super Rugby game for the Force and he could return to Sydney a happy man.
He’s earned considerably more than that. And Sydney is no longer home. Hodgson intends staying in Perth and already is preparing himself for the day when the cheering stops. In a few weeks he will open in West Leederville the first of what he hopes will grow to become a chain of gyms.
Meanwhile, the promise he made to Mitchell has carried through to Richard Graham and on to the current Force coach, Michael Foley.