Veteran Sea Eagles hooker Lachlan Croker says he wasn’t surprised to learn that superstar teammate Tom Trbojevic had offered to take a significant pay cut over the next two years in order to make it up to the club for the games he missed due to injury.
Trbojevic reportedly tried to save the club $750,000 over the next two years, but that offer was knocked back by the NRL, with the Sea Eagles to pay their main man $1.1m a season.
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The selfless act came after the luckless fullback suffered the sixth hamstring injury of his career, with Trbojevic finally set to play his 150th NRL match after he made his debut back in 2015.
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“I talked to Seibs (Sea Eagles coach Anthony Seibold) about it and we had a chat to the management team here. We explored a few options but it wasn’t meant to be,” he said on Tuesday.
“I’m really excited to be back playing footy for another couple of years and I’m really excited to be at this club.”
Trbojevic hasn’t played 20 games in a season since 2018 due to his endless run of setbacks, but it didn’t stop him from claiming the 2021 Dally M Medal on the back of some freakish attacking numbers.
His love for the club and the local community is only matched by his brothers Jake and Ben, which is why his offer to sacrifice a large chunk of his salary to help the team wasn’t a shock to his teammates.
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“It doesn’t surprise me,” Croker said.
“You only have to listen to the way that him and Jake talk about the club. Being here as long as I have, they just love the place and they really want us to do well.
“Being in a team alongside them, you feel like it’s a place you want to play footy for and you want to play for the club but also for those guys.
“I’m sure he feels that he owes a lot to the team with that sort of price tag and everything that’s happened, but everything he’s done for the club and me has been incredibly special.
“I don’t know where my career would be without the way that he’s played his footy. I’ve sort of been lucky to be in a team where we have guys like that who can score tries out of nowhere.
“To have such a love for the club, it makes my job really easy where I just have to turn up and worry about myself.”
Trbojevic missed almost two months with a hamstring injury that ruled him out of this year’s State of Origin series, but he has been unstoppable since he got back, with the attacking maestro scoring nine tries and setting up 10 in his six games at fullback.
“You do question whether you have a place in the game anymore when you are sitting on the sidelines,” he said ahead of a crucial game against the Bulldogs on Friday night.
“It is tough and a lot of people go through it, but that’s just the nature of our game. To be back here playing some good footy, I’m just really happy about that and excited about the opportunity we have at the end of the season.”
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