Reece Hodge

Part of the reason Reece Hodge became a professional is a training-ground video of him kicking a penalty from beyond 75 metres. He was playing club rugby in Sydney at the time and had just scored 169 points in twenty Shute Shield matches.

He plays centre for Bayonne, is 1.91m and 94kg, and has started Test matches at wing, full-back, centre and fly-half. Australia have used him everywhere from 10 to 15.

Hodge grew up at Harbord Harlequins in Sydney’s northern beaches and split his teens between rugby and cricket, playing both at state level, before the ARU National Academy made him choose. He missed the 2014 season with an ankle injury.

The Melbourne Rebels signed him in August 2015. He debuted against the Western Force on 27 February 2016 and scored two tries, two penalties and two conversions in it. He turned down Toulon, then European and French champions, to do it. Eight seasons later he became the first Rebel to reach a hundred appearances.

Michael Cheika capped him against New Zealand in Wellington on 27 August 2016. He started the 2019 World Cup opener against Fiji, scored, and was then banned for three matches for a dangerous tackle, returning for the quarter-final defeat to England.

Dave Rennie made him first-choice fly-half in 2020, which lasted about a year before Noah Lolesio and then Quade Cooper took the shirt. Eddie Jones picked him for the 2023 Rugby Championship and left him out of the World Cup squad.

Sixty-three caps, forty-one starts, 168 points, eight Rugby Championship campaigns. No club honours at all.

Bayonne signed him in 2023 on three years. What they get is a long-range goal-kicker who can fill any hole in the back line, and the flip side of that is a player who has never fully owned one shirt anywhere.