Ice man gets to the point
In- form halfback looking forward to Hamilton visit
He’s the man who broke the Warriors’ hearts last month, and Trent Hodkinson is out to do it again on Sunday in Hamilton.
The Bulldogs halfback has quickly become known as the ice man of the NRL, with a sharpshooting boot helping his side to the top of the ladder.
Hodkinson, 25, has slotted 33 from 38 off the tee this season but has also nailed two field goals to clinch games, including that one at Eden Park in round six which helped defeat the Warriors 21- 20.
The following week he snapped a one- pointer to beat the Rabbitohs.
‘‘ There’s been a few close ones, but we’ll take them,’’ Hodkinson said. ‘‘ And I think the closer games are the ones that bring a side together.
‘‘ I thought last year sometimes we drifted off toward the end of the game and this year we’re playing for the full 80, which is nice, and finishing the games.’’
Hodkinson is in his fourth year at Canterbury, having spent his debut season in 2010 at Manly, when he snapped two field goals in three minutes to down the Bunnies, having not kicked one in his life before that.
Manly had offered Hodkinson fulltime footy and a nice base income, which was by far a better option than staying at Parramatta in the under- 20s side, getting up at 5am to fit fire sprinklers and not getting home until 7.30pm after training.
Hodkinson is no doubt eager to push his side all the way this year. He missed the 2012 grand final through injury, and with a knee requiring cutting- edge stem cell surgery, he feared he would never come back to full fitness.
However, things couldn’t be going better at the moment, with he and five- eighth Josh Reynolds combining nicely to steer the Dogs to a sixgame winning run.
‘‘ It seems to be going OK at the moment, there’s plenty of room for improvement, we’ve just got to keep working hard and hopefully we can keep playing some decent footy for the team.’’
The Bulldogs are eyeing a big couple of weeks, against the Warriors and Roosters, before having the bye, and Hodkinson is looking forward to reacquainting himself with Hamilton, having visited seven years ago.
‘‘ I’ve been to Waikato when I was younger,’’ he said. ‘‘ Parramatta had a junior development squad go over there. We actually stayed right near the race track there. And we played a game against a Waikato junior club.
‘‘ It was a while ago, but [ I’m] looking forward to coming back over. I enjoyed my time there, it’s a very nice place.’’
Whether Hodkinson will take away just as fond memories this time round remains to be seen, with the Warriors coming into some hot form of their own.
He believed the Warriors would be buoyed by this week’s extension of coach Andrew McFadden’s tract until the end of 2017.
‘‘ Him re- signing will be a big boost for the club and their players. So they’ll be wanting to impress and put on a good performance for him. And I guess they’ll be talking about the last time we came over and I guess they let it slip.’’
Hodkinson’s opposite, Shaun Johnson, was in dazzling form in last weekend’s 54- 12 thrashing of the Raiders, and the battle will be a great match- up.
‘‘ He’s a fantastic son said.
‘‘ He’s got a massive bag of tricks and he can pull something out of
player,’’
con-
Hodkin- nothing, and you can’t take him too lightly, that’s for sure. He had a good performance last week and we’ll keep a close eye on him, definitely, this week.’’
The Bulldogs fly into Auckland this afternoon and immediately bus down to Hamilton, with Hodkinson looking forward to seeing the club’s fans on this side of the ditch again.
‘‘ When we came over last time [ to Eden Park] there was a good following,’’ he said.
‘‘ Obviously it’s our home game so it’ll be good to see a lot of our fans that live over there, and hopefully we can get the win for them.’’