“If he wants to play,happy days,we will pick him in first grade but he might have an NRL contract by tomorrow or Friday,” Byron told theHerald.
“So we will wait and see.”
Justfour days after abruptly leaving the Warriors,Lodge surprised a small band of club rugby fans on Tuesday night when he turned out in the rain for North’s second grade team against Bond University.
Byron said the code switch had come after he was approached by the Lodge camp at the weekend to ask if the 26-year-old prop could come down and train with Norths “to keep fit and do some skills”. Lodge said he had played some rugby at high school.
When he turned up at training,Lodge learned a second-grade was game being played that night as a wet-weather catch-up clash.
“He said:‘do you mind if I play in the second grade game?’ and we weren’t going to say no,so he paid his subs on the spot,bought his socks and shorts and they brought him on for the last 50 minutes,” Byron said.