Everyone has a sliding doors story. Few are as consequential as Zac Hosking\u2019s.<\/p>\n
The Canberra second-rower will line up against Brisbane in a home final on Sunday in the form of his career and with a strong chance to play in his first NRL grand final.<\/p>\n
With inspirational prop Josh Papalii named but in doubt with an ankle injury, Hosking will be called upon to lead from the front against a red-hot Broncos side.<\/p>\n
But if not for Brisbane, the 28-year-old would likely be working as a carpenter, far away from the buzz and excitement of professional football.<\/p>\n
A Newcastle junior, Hosking toiled away for half a decade in the Knights lower grades without gaining a sniff of first grade.<\/p>\n
Then in 2022, as he was contemplating giving up on his rugby league dream, the Broncos came knocking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty sick and tired of being overlooked to be honest. So I pretty much said that was it, and when the Broncos opportunity came up I almost didn\u2019t take it,\u201d he told AAP.<\/p>\n
It was a \u201cheartbreaking\u201d decision to throw away his league ambitions.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I was pretty over it, you know, because I was working full time as a carpenter at the same time. So that was hard to juggle footy and that as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the Broncos thing came up, a few people that were close to me said don\u2019t look back. So I had one last crack and it\u2019s turned out well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even after signing his 16-week train-and-trial contract, Hosking was nearly denied an NRL debut again.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This time, pandemic border closures prevented him from crossing into Queensland to train with the team for the first eight weeks of his contract.<\/p>\n
It was only in the last week of his trial that Hosking finally got his call-up, and from then the offers started coming in.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrazy how it all panned out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In 2023, he was an integral member of Penrith\u2019s title-winning squad but was overlooked for the Panthers\u2019 thrilling grand final comeback win against the Broncos.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was heartbreaking. It\u2019s something I still think about all the time,\u201d Hosking said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something that I\u2019d like to forget about by winning one here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although he has a lot of love for the Broncos after they gave him his start, Hosking won\u2019t be doing them any favours on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually really embrace coming up against my old sides, because there\u2019s some mates in those sides, but also I always like to get it over them as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re obviously a team full of exceptional athletes in their side. We need to do our homework this week and chop them down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite his late arrival in the NRL, Hosking will be the second-oldest member of Canberra\u2019s forward pack behind captain Joe Tapine, if Papalii is ruled out.<\/p>\n
And his experience will be crucial in the Raiders\u2019 attempts to defuse the likes of Pat Carrigan and Payne Haas, whom Hosking regards as \u201cone of the best front rowers every year\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone has a sliding doors story. Few are as consequential as Zac Hosking\u2019s. The Canberra second-rower will line…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,4428,4532,761,762,158,85,4417],"class_list":{"0":"post-130773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nrl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brisbane-broncos","11":"tag-canberra-raiders","12":"tag-national-rugby-league","13":"tag-nationalrugbyleague","14":"tag-nrl","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-zac-hosking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}