{"id":95672,"date":"2021-07-05T23:40:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T23:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=95672"},"modified":"2021-07-06T00:57:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-06T00:57:15","slug":"lodge-lifts-lid-on-weird-broncos-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=95672","title":{"rendered":"Lodge lifts lid on 'weird' Broncos departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newly signed Warriors prop Matt Lodge has described his exit from the Broncos<\/a> as "weird" but claims his departure from Red Hill wasn't acrimonious and he left on "good terms".<\/p>\n

Lodge's future was the subject of much conjecture <\/a>even before the season began but was retained. Yet that didn't stop the rumour mill from going into overdrive all season with plenty of uncertainty around his place on the team. He was eventually moved to the New Zealand based club just days after being told he would be staying in Brisbane<\/a>.<\/p>\n

"He (Walters) rang me and had a conversation, and at that point I was going to stay at the club," Lodge said.<\/p>\n

"He said he wanted me there and to stay for the future, we had that conversation in the bye week.<\/p>\n

\"Lockyer<\/p>\n

"I just got a phone call a couple of nights after that saying a deal would be done to leave the club. At that point it had changed that many times that in my mind, I needed a new start and I took it with both hands.<\/p>\n

"(The second call) was from my player manager and he just said the deal was nearly done.<\/p>\n

"He was good. We sat down and had a good chat when I left, and he definitely didn't do anything wrong by me.<\/p>\n

"It was pretty respectful \u2013 it is obviously a hard role in his position and you've got to move players on.<\/p>\n

"I'd like to think that I handled that well. It was good to leave in that aspect and the respect was still there.<\/p>\n

"The club has done a lot for me, and even though I didn't know Kevvie too well, I'm sure he'd say we left on good terms with each other."<\/p>\n

A mid-season move to Newcastle fell through for Lodge when he was told by coach Kevin Walters he was required at Brisbane for the rest of 2021.<\/p>\n

But just a few days after a public declaration from Walters that neither Lodge nor Tevita Pangai Jr would be leaving, the Broncos sent the prop packing.<\/p>\n

\"Broncos<\/p>\n

"Obviously it has been a bit of a weird one\u2026 I was probably looking to leave before pre-season and that got changed quite a few times," he said.<\/p>\n

"It was looking like I was staying, going and staying \u2013 it was kind of hard to communicate with other clubs until I got a payout figure and permission to do so.<\/p>\n

"It dragged on a little bit, but got it done and happy it's all behind me now.<\/p>\n

"Initially I was going to move, but then I had a good pre-season and started to put some good games together.<\/p>\n

"Last year I didn't have the best year through a few major injuries.<\/p>\n

"Once I got back on the field it changed a little bit, but eventually we got to the conclusion that I was going to leave and it was the best thing to do.<\/p>\n

"Without going into too much detail, I sold my house earlier in the year because I didn't think I would be sticking around. It changed a fair bit, but it's done now.<\/p>\n

"I'm happy to move forward with it and I've got some stability now. I can just go to work with a clear head now."<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newly signed Warriors prop Matt Lodge has described his exit from the Broncos as "weird" but claims his departure from Red Hill wasn't acrimonious and […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"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\/95672"}],"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=95672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95674,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95672\/revisions\/95674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}