State of Origin 2017: The slow end of Trent Hodkinson, the unlikely Origin hero
TRENT Hodkinson was the man who ended the greatest streak in State of Origin history. Now, his NRL career is almost over.
Blues
Don't miss out on the headlines from Blues. Followed categories will be added to My News.
WHATEVER else Trent Hodkinson can’t do, he could always kick.
Injuries have robbed him of any speed he once had and now they make it hard for him to cut it physically in the NRL week to week.
The Knights veteran is playing on a young team with young players who are low on confidence because they never win and can’t catch a break.
In all likelihood, we’re seeing the end of his NRL career before our eyes.
But he could always kick. In his five years as a kicker, Hodkinson had a success rate of 75 per cent or more four times. Last year he successfully kicked 47 of 56 attempts (83.9 per cent) from the tee.
And whatever his own weaknesses as a player, there was a time when Hodkinson was reliable in the clutch.
He’s kicked five game-winning field goals over the course of his career, including a golden-point winner in the 2014 finals series against Manly.
He also played a vital role in the Blues 2014 Origin series victory, an incredible accomplishment that too many people have forgotten for reasons we’ll get into later.
So on Sunday afternoon, with the game on the line and the siren sounding, Hodkinson had to take the kick.
He’s the experienced man, he’s captained the club.
He’s the one.
Even if his stint at Newcastle hasn’t turned out the way he or the club planned, this is why they brought him there in the first place.
He had to take the kick.
But he didn’t.
Poor old Brock Lamb did, and the 20-year old crumbled under the pressure, shanking the kick as badly as a kick has ever been shanked
“I thought the penalty was on the 40-metre line and obviously Lamby has got the bigger boot. He slots them over there at training all the time,” Hodkinson told Triple M after the match.
“When he lined it up it was on the 30 (metre line) and I didn’t want to take it off him because he was zoned in.
“I probably should’ve taken that one. I feel for him.”
It was the final twist in what has been a cruel few years for Hodkinson, who had his best game as a Knight in the 20-18 loss to his former club, Canterbury.
Hodkinson is stuck in football purgatory in the Hunter.
When Newcastle finally turn things around — and they will, because as bleak as it looks surely nobody can be this bad forever — Hodkinson will almost surely not be there.
He’s 29 next month with crook knees and earning money the Knights would surely rather use elsewhere.
Although his Origin triumph was only three years ago, it seems more like a decade.
For whatever reason, the Blues’ historic win — which should be held up as one of the most momentous series in Origin history — has been wiped from the history books like we’re in some Orwellian dystopia.
And even when people do bring it up, they underplay the Blues performances and the role of Hodkinson and Josh Reynolds.
Cooper Cronk wasn’t there, they cry. If he was there, Queensland win easy!
Maybe. But he wasn’t there, and they didn’t win and that’s what matters.
Jarryd Hayne carried them, they’ll tell you.
Hayne was the best player on that team and his performance in Game I was one of the best by any Blues player this century. But when the Blues needed a spark in Game II, Hodkinson was the one who did it. He scored the try, he kicked the goal and the Blues won the series.
The single greatest criticism levelled at the Blues playmakers over the last 11 years has been their inability to perform in the final moments. A succession of halfbacks and five-eighths have been tried, discarded, recalled and discarded again.
NOT ME: Why Lamb took the kick
HEARTBREAK: Knights go down in thriller
The only one who has been able to do it is Trent Hodkinson.
When the match got tight and the Blues needed a play, Hodkinson provided. And it wasn’t anything flash, it wasn’t some magical chip and chase or cut out pass, it was just a show and go from a player who rarely does either of those things.
In the biggest moment of his career, with the streak on the line, Hodkinson did the damn thing.
It was his second State of Origin match.
The unlikeliest choice turned out to be the right one.
Since 1997, three halfbacks have won at least two matches in a series for the Blues.
Andrew Johns did it twice, in 2003 and 2005. Brett Kimmorley did it in 2000. Trent Hodkinson did it in 2014.
Mitchell Pearce might be more talented than Hodkinson and already has a vastly superior body of work at club level. But in seven series for the Blues he’s failed to match what Hodkinson did in one.
Hodkinson was the right player on the right team at the right time and he got the job done where many have failed before and since, and that should be celebrated.
Since that golden night in 2014, everything has spiralled downwards for Hodkinson.
He and Reynolds struggled in the period just after the series but regrouped to lead a stirring Bulldogs run to the grand final.
With Michael Ennis out, Hodkinson co-captained the club in the big one against Souths. But he was troubled by a leg injury and, in hindsight, probably shouldn’t have played.
His 2015 season was a disaster. He retained his place in the Blues side despite form struggles, but Josh Reynolds wasn’t so lucky.
NSW lost the series opener 11-10 and Hodkinson couldn’t repeat his late-match heroics despite having the chance in the set before Cooper Cronk’s deciding field goal.
A win in Game II set up a decider at Suncorp and the Maroons’ 52-6 victory, the biggest win in Origin history, ended Hodkinson’s rep career.
Perhaps the sheer domination of that result was what scrubbed the previous year from so many people’s minds.
It wasn’t just a win, it was a destruction of biblical proportions. The two teams seemed miles apart, like they were playing different sports. The grinding, battling Blues were completely washed away under the torrent of Queensland tries, to the point where believing the Blues had won it all only 12 months earlier seemed beyond belief.
Hodkinson was never going to survive the purge that followed, especially after moving to the battling Knights.
He should be held up as a Blues hero, the battler who came good and helped defeat a cartel of Immortals. But instead he’s been shunted to the arse end of history. Hodkinson should be celebrated, but he’s been condemned to obscurity.
The week before Game II of that 2015 series, Hodkinson was hooked by Bulldogs coach Des Hasler with 15 minutes left in a match against the Dragons. His own poor form and the emergence of Moses Mbye meant he left the club less than a year after helping to steer them to a grand final.
His final game in blue and white, ironically, was a 20-18 win over Newcastle.
Now, Hodkinson seems a lifetime away from the man who played such a vital role for what was such an important victory in the history of interstate rugby league.
The Blues could win on Wednesday night, but can that win mean as much as a victory that came after eight consecutive years of futility?
It also seems unlikely that some will look to invalidate the achievement of winning the series, even though losing Johnathan Thurston for two matches, Darius Boyd for one and not having Greg Inglis or Matt Scott at all is a greater loss than missing Cooper Cronk.
Despite being the hero the Blues needed, it seems Hodkinson will never get his dues as one of the most important players in Blues history.
Daley explains why Tedesco was overlooked from Origin ‘meet and greet’
In what represents his first crucial steps as Blues coach, Laurie Daley held a meet-and-greet session with 28 players that are most likely to be charged with defending the Origin shield against Queensland.
Cleary’s three-word post to terrify NRL
Nathan Cleary’s latest loved up snaps with Mary Fowler came with a message that should terrify the Panthers star’s NRL rivals.