NRL 2020: South Sydney-Cronulla Sharks clash has special meaning for housemate rivals
South Sydney’s $1 million recruit may be hogging the headlines ahead of the Rabbitohs-Sharks showdown, but the biggest story could come from the housemates whose rivalry will move from the kitchen to the field.
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If the drink bottle of Souths enforcer Liam Knight is spiked with milk on Saturday night, point the finger in one direction.
His housemate, Toby Rudolph.
“Liam doesn't eat any dairy. Hates it,” Rudolf laughs.
And if Knight is caught by the Fox Sports cameras swinging his Budgie Smugglers in the face of the NRL debutant from Cronulla, you'll understand why.
“I brush my teeth every night and there are his wet Budgie’s (cossie’s) hanging over the shower curtain in my face. It’s disgusting,” Rudolf said.
House rules are headed for ANZ Stadium — and if the lounge room banter between the two is anything to go by, grab the popcorn.
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The posters and promo’s for the clash are all about the club debut of Souths $1 million fullback Latrell Mitchell.
But make no mistake, for two of the game's most promising forwards, this is a scheduling dream that saw the flatmates wish each other goodnight on Friday, before waking up this morning, as hated-rivals.
It’s Knight's Rabbitohs that will host Rudolf's Sharks and all those wrestling sessions down the narrow hallway of their two-bedder at Randwick, will be played-out in public.
“This began like all good love stories...unintentionally,” Knight said, when asked how it was, that two opposition NRL forwards moved-in together seven months ago.
A Maroubra local junior and former Rabbitohs under-20s and NSW Cup player, Rudolf was cut by Souths at the end of 2017, leaving him shattered and with few options, the best of which was a run with Redcliffe in the QLD Cup.
“At the end of that year, I was crying in Mum's hands, telling her that I had failed,” Rudolf said.
The footy star’s relationship with his mother, Susan, is everything. She’ll be there in the stands tonight.
Rudolf has never known his father, having been a sperm donor baby and it was Susan, who raised him in Maroubra housing commission.
Which is why with the encouragement of his mother, Rudolf gave his career one last crack. It has proven telling.
“I remember sitting down with my other roommate when I moved up to Brisbane saying; 'If I don't get a starting spot with Redcliffe, I'm not going to stick around.
“I'm going to go home (Sydney) and start a trade and get my life moving forward
“But I got my chance at Redcliffe in 2018 and everything happened from there.”
And that includes meeting Knight for the first time, after Rudolf, 24, was named man of the match in Redcliffe's 2018 Intrust Super Cup grand final win.
“Me and a few mates went up to Brisbane to watch a friend of ours play in the Redcliffe grand final that Toby played in,” Knight said.
“We made a weekend of it and we ended up having a few beers and we jumped onto their Mad Monday. That's when me and Toby met.”
The pair stayed in touch and when Knight moved from Canberra to join South Sydney in 2019, the duo found themselves back in Sydney together, with Rudolf earning a two-year deal with the Sharks.
“I was living with another mate in Rosebery and my lease was up and so when Toby said he wanted to move out of his mum's place, we found this place in Randwick together,” Knight said.
“We’ve been here for the past seven months.”
While cooking is shared, Knight does the majority of washing-up because he says, Rudolf “is hopeless at it”.
And not surprisingly, there's one rule that the 106kg-plus duo refuse to break: “Don’t steal each others food. that's the number one priority.”
Knight was one of the first people Rudolf spoke to when he learned of his career-defining NRL call-up on Monday.
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“I called Toby on Monday after training to see if he was in the team,” Knight said.
“I'm stoked, its awesome. Turns out even better they're playing us as well.”
And finally, given the intense nature of the NRL and how precious coaches can be with the leaking of information, the rivals shared-living would draw scepticism from more than a few of the game's deepest-thinkers.
But according to the easy-going duo, opposition coaches tonight Wayne Bennett and John Morris, have little to worry about.
“We're forwards, we don't take much notice of things,” Knight laughed.
“I'm just planning on handing out his (Rudolf) first loss as an NRL player.”