{"id":411329,"date":"2024-07-11T05:50:32","date_gmt":"2024-07-11T05:50:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=411329"},"modified":"2024-07-11T07:06:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-11T07:06:00","slug":"recalled-stars-worst-year-of-my-career-admission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=411329","title":{"rendered":"Recalled star's 'worst year of my career' admission"},"content":{"rendered":"

C\ufeffronulla Sharks<\/a> prop Toby Rudolf has opened up on his axing from the side, revealing he's considered giving up his sobriety commitment.<\/p>\n

Before the season started as Rudolf battled a chronic toe injury<\/a>, the 28-year-old said he was giving up alcohol for a year to try and get back to his best. Albeit, with a three-time clause.<\/p>\n

Despite the Sharks sitting in fourth place, the season hasn't exactly panned out for Rudolf, describing it as "the worst year of my career" after he was dropped following a round 17 loss to the Bulldogs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The prop was then back in NSW Cup, playing for Newtown at Henson Park and helping the Jets defeat Western Suburbs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Now with injuries and a quality performance in reserve grade, Rudolf has been named on the bench for the Sharks' clash with the Tigers and revealed an "honest conversation" was had with coach Craig Fitzgibbon<\/a> after the tough call. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"He just said where I have been in the past and where I'm currently at, there's too big a gap," Rudolf said from Henson Park at the launch of the Beer, Footy and Food Festival.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"He went through where I was a bit low on energy, my output in the years gone by has been a lot higher than in recent weeks\ufeff, questioned my off-field habits and a few things I probably needed to be questioned on to be honest.<\/p>\n

"Fitzy won't ever have a hidden agenda, he'll tell you exactly how it is and there's no better coach in the game for that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

"We had an honest conversation, I came out here (Henson Park) and had a decent game and there's been a couple injuries as well after the Titans game. It was obviously a bit of a stinger, no one wants to be told they're not where they think they are."<\/p>\n

Watch the 2024 NRL premiership live and free on Nine and<\/strong><\/em> 9Now<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Those off-field habits, Rudolf explained would stay between him and Fitzgibbon.<\/p>\n

However, the prop did state "over-thinking" has been damaging for his game and the consideration to stop his no drinking commitment has been a real possibility.<\/p>\n

\"Rudolf<\/p>\n

"The no drinking thing is something where you need to let a bit of steam off, sometimes it gets monotonous, footy, it's one of my great loves of life and something I hold so dear to my heart, sometimes you just need to have a break from it," he said.<\/p>\n

"I was getting a bit too in my own head as well, we were having a few chats about that.<\/p>\n

"I was over-thinking a lot of things and the fitness hasn't been where it has been and I couldn't figure out why.<\/p>\n

"I missed out on the pre-season but at this stage you should be able to make that time back up. All these things I've been over-thinking too much and he just told me to simplify things and go out and play and that's what I did on the weekend.<\/p>\n

"… \ufeffI said before the start of the year, if I had the worst year of my career, which so far it has been, I was just going to get blind halfway through the year but I wanted to stick through it and see if it made me feel better.<\/p>\n

\"Toby<\/p>\n

"The one thing it has done, I had a chronic toe injury that nearly sidelined me for the rest of my career, right now the toe is going really good so I definitely feel like staying off the piss has aided me in a certain way for sure and I've still had a couple of drinks with the team and we've got quite close over it so in terms of the rest of the year I might have one drink in Townsville or here, depending where I'm playing and that'll be it for the season.<\/p>\n

"The back end of the season most of the NRL is pulling their heads in and getting ready for finals footy and I'll be doing the same."<\/p>\n

\ufeffWith his admission of over-thinking in mind, Rudolf's memory for specific moments in games is obvious.<\/p>\n

He claims he "single-handedly lost us the game" in that Bulldogs match.<\/p>\n

The first try to Viliame Kikau he put down to a "muck up" in defence between him and Braydon Trindall. His marker defence was exploite for Reed Mahoney's four-pointer and then Matt Burton's penalty goal came from his discipline. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"That was 14 points directly related to me," he conceded.<\/p>\n

\"NRL<\/p>\n

However, from his conversations with Fitzgibbon, Rudolf knows that's not the sole reason he was dropped as he searches for the consistency that'll make him a starting front rower again. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"My process is if I have a game like that … I give myself about 24 to 48 hours of feeling like rubbish, like I've let the world down and then I walk in on Monday at training and there's no point carrying all this baggage … you're always trying to improve, always trying to get better," he said.<\/p>\n

"I chat a lot to James Maloney, doing a podcast with him at the moment, The Journeymen<\/em>, and the biggest thing for him was he was a goldfish, he was one that would throw a cut out intercept pass and then behind the line he'd be blowing up at his forwards for not making tackles so that's something I'm trying to adopt as well.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"You've got to let yourself feel the emotion of letting yourself and the team down for a certain part of the week or hours directly afterwards but then it's back to work again. You hold on to it for a little bit but always try to do your best.<\/p>\n

"… There's times in seasons gone by where I'm feeling so sorry for myself in games where I can't breathe and I'm hunched over in a heap and I'm not really connecting with those around me and it's the old saying a team of champions won't beat a champion team and I want to be a part of a champion team."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

C\ufeffronulla Sharks prop Toby Rudolf has opened up on his axing from the side, revealing he's considered giving up his sobriety commitment. Before the season […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":411332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411329"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411329"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":411340,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411329\/revisions\/411340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/411332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}