Inside Matt Lodge’s sudden departure from Warriors and why the club let him walk.
The Warriors’ announcement on Friday that Matt Lodge was leaving caught everyone off guard, but those on the inside knew it was coming sooner rather than later because he risked becoming a negative influence.
Lodge, who turns 27 later this month, has a history of leaving contracts early.
He began playing for the Panthers’ New York City team before joining the Storm in 2013.
However, midway through the 2014 season, he transferred to the Wests Tigers, where he eventually made his NRL debut.
He was fired by the Tigers in October 2015 after being arrested at gunpoint in New York for assaulting and holding hostage a couple and their nine-year-old son.
Then he made another mid-season move from the Broncos to the Warriors last year, and now he’s done it again less than a year later. During his time with the Warriors, the Broncos will still pay a significant portion of his salary.
It is understood that he became increasingly dissatisfied with the Warriors and was unwilling to finish the season, despite the fact that he was still owed money.
Lodge’s father-in-law is Peter O’Sullivan, the Dolphins’ current recruitment manager, who previously worked for the Warriors before leaving late last year to join Wayne Bennett.
O’Sullivan has a strained relationship with the Warriors, and his departure was acrimonious.
Lodge is managed by Stephen Moses, the cousin of controversial player agent Isaac Moses, who previously managed Lodge before being deregistered by the NRL last year for coaching Tim Mannah to provide false and misleading evidence to the NRL’s Integrity Unit regarding the Eels salary cap rorting.
Stephen Moses works for Cove Agency, which is owned by Isaac Moses.
It is unclear how much of this influenced Lodge’s decision-making, but Lodge wanted out and was unwilling to wait.
His statement in a press release issued on Friday that he wanted to provide the Warriors with clarity because he would not be taking up the option to play with them next season makes little sense, as there are players throughout the NRL who know they will be leaving next season but are still content to play out this year with their current club.
Lodge had decided he wanted to leave the Warriors immediately, despite the fact that he was contracted until the end of the season.
Lodge was initially told that this was not how the system worked and that he could not simply walk out of a contract.
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