WEE WAA centre Matt Hogan expects to be 100 per cent for tomorrow’s Northern Division Championships at Scully Park.
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The former NSW Residents centre who has NRL experience with Canberra and South Sydney, pinched a nerve in his neck at the Easter KO last weekend and shouldn’t have played the final against West Lions.
He’s been to the chiropractor and has been having physiotherapy on it all week to ensure he’s right.
“It’s stiff as a sailboard right now,” he said on Tuesday night.
“But I’ll be right.”
He believes the Group 4 side will take some beating.
“It’s a young and mobile side,” he said.
“It’s a pretty good side and we should go well.”
Hogan also expects his Wee Waa team-mates — Lee Stanford, Ben Wilson and Tom Wilson — to play important roles in any success.
Stanford and Ben Wilson are the second rowers in the Group 4 side and possess strength, speed and talent.
“We’ve got a new trainer, Matt Evans, and he’s been really hoeing in out home,” he said.
“Lee reckons it’s the fittest he’s been for a long while. It’s probably the fittest I’ve been playing country football.”
He expects Ben Wilson to show selectors how talented he is and is excited about the prospects of fellow centre Tom Wilson.
“Tom’s a bloody good player who has a lot of ability and is going to be a real good footballer as he hits his straps.”
West Lions can attest to Wilson’s ability after he scored a brilliant solo try from 40 metres out in last Sunday’s KO Final.
Hogan also showed his class, despite the injury, to make some telling defensive tackles in that final loss.
“We didn’t play too well in that final,” he admitted.
“But we’ll be better for it.”
At 27 he believes he may be “a bit long in the tooth” but is determined to pick up his representative career on Saturday. Hogan, who played 11 first grade games with South Sydney when they were in the NRL, still has ambitions to play at the high level.
Playing for NSW Residents against Queensland Residents as the curtain raiser to a State of Origin remains one of his bitter-sweet memories.
He lasted just five minutes in that match before suffering a serious knee injury. That’s something he doesn’t dwell on, rather, concentrating on helping Wee Waa to a premiership and Group 4 to a Northern Division title.
