Recruit watch: Josh Hodgson
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The NRL market has been in full swing for 2023 with several stars switching clubs ahead of the new season.
NRL.com takes a look at the major transfers and how your club will benefit from a star arrival.
Josh Hodgson (Eels)
Age: 33
Position they’ll fill: Hooker
Contracted until: 2024 (club option)
What Hodgson can bring
No dummy-half in the Telstra Premiership right now has more top-flight experience than Hodgson, with eight seasons at the Raiders coming after six prior years in the UK Super League, not to mention his 23 caps for England and Great Britain.
Joining the club to take the place of Reed Mahoney, the Englishman knows what it takes to get the job done at this level and is someone who will lift standards during the week at training and come game day.
He's a smart operator – in the past becoming a master of the one-on-one strip and regularly catching teams out with his clever kicks from the ruck – and a classy game manager, who during his time with Canberra always helped get the best out of the forward pack around him.
At 33 Hodgson is at the back end of his career, but his body will have benefitted greatly from a full year off following his torn ACL in round 1 of the 2022 season, and he likely arrives at Parramatta in the best physical shape he's been in for some time.
League leaders: Hodgson reveals game-day prep
Why it’ll work
At this stage of his career Hodgson is the ideal type of player to come into a quality team who are ready to win now.
The Eels came within one victory of winning it all last year, and while Mahoney was a big part that success, in Hodgson the club are getting a player with more of an attacking mindset who can add plenty with ball in hand.
He's a scoring threat close to the line and if you remove his two injury-impacted seasons in 2020 and 2022, in which he played less than 10 games, Hodgson averaged 11 try assists per season during his time with the Raiders.
That ability on the ball should ensure he takes pressure, and defensive attention, off the Eels' stellar spine trio of Clinton Gutherson, Dylan Brown and Mitchell Moses, which will help in their quest to go one better in 2023.
