{"id":320412,"date":"2025-12-01T11:14:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/320412\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T11:14:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T11:14:15","slug":"matt-lodge-secures-surprise-nrl-contract-nrl-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/320412\/","title":{"rendered":"Matt Lodge secures surprise NRL contract – NRL News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matt Lodge will represent the sixth club of his NRL<\/a> career, with the prop reportedly signing a one-year deal to move to the North Queensland Cowboys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lodge, who has spent the last three years at the Manly Sea Eagles<\/a>, knocked back a one-year extension for 2026 on the Northern Beaches, claiming at the time he wouldn’t play for minimum value.<\/p>\n

The prop has struggled with injuries during his time at Manly, having previously played for the Wests Tigers<\/a>, Brisbane Broncos<\/a>, New Zealand Warriors<\/a> and Sydney Roosters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He almost left Manly 12 months before his time at the club came to an end, but wound up snubbing a chance at the St George Illawarra Dragons<\/a> for 2025.<\/p>\n

Instead, Lodge, who was expected to finish his career in the English Super League<\/a> after attracting interest, will take a gamble on the move to Townsville per a news.com.au report.<\/p>\n

The Cowboys are in the process of reworking their squad, with coach Todd Payten<\/a> under enormous pressure following a lacklustre 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n

All the attention around North Queensland has been centred on their 2027 side, given the number of players still to sign after the November 1 deadline recently passed to negotiate with off-contract players from rival outfits.<\/p>\n

However, it’s understood Payten was still concerned about his middle third depth for 2026 and so decided to make the play for Lodge.<\/p>\n

Lodge will fill some of the void left by the retiring Jordan McLean<\/a>, with the former Kangaroo hanging up the boots at the end of 2025, while North Queensland also have questions around how much longer Jason Taumalolo<\/a> and Coen Hess<\/a> will play on for.<\/p>\n

Taumalolo and Hess are both expected to play roles in 2026 alongside the recently re-signed Griffin Neame<\/a> and club captain Reuben Cotter,<\/a><\/p>\n

Meanwhile the Cowboys also have the likes of Kai O’Donnell<\/a>, Sam McIntyre<\/a>, Thomas Mikaele<\/a>, Kaiden Lahrs<\/a>, Harrison Edwards<\/a> and Dolphins<\/a> recruit James Walsh<\/a> who can fill roles in the middle third.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matt Lodge will represent the sixth club of his NRL career, with the prop reportedly signing a one-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-320412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320412","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=320412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}