How Jarrod became the Titans’ biggest loser

JARROD Wallace, six weeks ago, had a serious numbers problem. Specifically, he weighed 118kg. Which wasn’t only too heavy, but double digits too heavy.

“And that number,” the Gold Coast forward (right) recalls, “it just wouldn’t come down.

“Normally I’ve got no problem coming back from summer and shedding kilos. But I’d done extras right through Christmas and, for some reason, the figure wasn’t dropping.”

And so, enter Titans Medical Coordinator Craig Catterick.

At a team barbecue, with beer in hand, the man responsible for Titans extras sessions suggested Wallace should give up $1000 if he couldn’t lose 10 kilos, and make his ideal playing weight, by March 12.

And to make things interesting, Catterick said he would drop as much weight too.

“Which didn’t turn out to be easy for anyone,” Wallace laughs. “By the finish ‘Cat’ was living on chicken broth.”

Still, it worked. The Queensland Origin forward, who returns in Round 3 from a 2017 suspension, finally hit the scales yesterday at 107.7kg which had him home by 300g.

The 26-year-old’s dramatic weight loss, thanks to extra sessions each week which, apart from sweating alongside Catterick, also included boxing with trainer Steve Driscoll, field work with Head of Performance Hayden Knowles and additional gym work with strength coach Scott Campbell.

Even sports scientist Emma Russo would call out during fieldwork if his workrate numbers, on her laptop by the sideline, dropped too low.

Wallace has also ditched bread, rice, pasta and beer.

So committed to the cause he was that, even hours before a weigh-in watched on by Titans players, he wore a sweat suit for 30 minutes of stationary bike, 20 minutes of treadmill and spent 10 minutes in a hot spa.

“When starting this thing, we dubbed it ‘Fight Camp’. That’s what we knew it had to be. So when the weight wasn’t coming off, I really got into it with our staff. And what I love about them, they put their bodies on the line too.”

After losing the weigh-in, Catterick was last seen heading out for a steak.