EX-England hooker Josh Hodgson has backed John Bateman to defy the critics when Shaun Wane’s side face Australia in this year’s Ashes.
Eyebrows were raised in some quarters when head coach Wane named the 32-year-old back row in his 24-man squad for the three-Test series after a mixed year in the NRL as his club North Queensland Cowboys finished 12th.
But Hodgson believes his former England and Canberra Raiders team-mate is key to England’s chances of bringing the rugby league Ashes back to home soil for the first time since 1970 and will have a big influence on the younger members of the squad who are tackling the Kangaroos for the first time.
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“The one thing he brings every single week is he competes, and he’ll compete every week whether you’re 60-0 down or 60-0 up,” Hodgson told The Bye Round podcast. “If we want to win a series, we’ve got to have 1-17 being of the exact same mentality.
“I get it – he’s getting a little older and the Cowboys didn’t play well this year, which hurts you as a back-rower because you probably aren’t going to be playing your best footy if the team aren’t.
“But he’s just a competitor and he fears no one. His energy…is infectious, and infectious energy can be negative or positive, and he’s one of those kids who just raises the bar and the belief.
“Especially when you look at some of the players who have never played the Australians…he’ll give them that belief. Not only that, show me an England game where John Bateman has played really poor.”
Hodgson played alongside Bateman 13 times in an England shirt, including the 2017 Rugby League World Cup clash with Australia where they were beaten 18-4 by the hosts in the tournament’s opening game.
The duo also featured as England went down 36-18 to the Aussies in the previous year’s Four Nations at London’s Olympic Stadium.
The two teams return to the capital for Saturday’s series opener at Wembley Stadium, where Great Britain recorded iconic victories in both the 1990 and 1994 Ashes series.
Hodgson insists the current generation of England players have nothing to fear from their Australian counterparts and admitted he suffered from feelings of inferiority early in his international career, despite carving out a successful nine-season NRL career after leaving Hull KR at the end of the 2014 season.
“I think for England especially, and I was a little bit the same, I love my country so much that sometimes I’d get a little bit of imposter syndrome,” Hodgson said.
“I’d question myself a bit and never really played as well for my country as I should have done, looking back.
“It wasn’t until that Tonga [semi-final in the 2017 World Cup] where I started really well and unfortunately did my knee, then had a good Test series [against New Zealand[ in ’18 and then started to get that bit of belief as I got older.
“But when I was younger I had a bit of that.”
England vs Australia fixtures (all 2.30pm UK time kick-off)
October 25 – First Test, Wembley Stadium (London)
November 1 – Second Test, Hill Dickinson Stadium (Liverpool)
November 8 – Third Test, AMT Headingley (Leeds)