Sydney Roosters forward Aidan Guerra is expected to be asked to testify on behalf of Queensland Origin teammate Justin Hodges when he fronts the NRL judiciary on Tuesday night in a bid to end his illustrious career with a grand final win.
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Hodges, who is retiring at the end of the season, may have played his last match after being charged on Sunday with a grade one dangerous throw - an offence that would have enabled the Brisbane centre to play by entering an early guilty plea if he did not have 40 per cent loading from two previous judiciary charges.
As a result, he will need to successfully challenge the charge to have a farewell in Sunday's grand final against North Queensland at ANZ Stadium and Guerra is likely to be called on to give evidence at the judiciary hearing after telling reporters in the dressing rooms at Suncorp Stadium last Friday night that Hodges should not be suspended as he had been playing for a penalty.
Hodges said he was nervous about facing the judiciary but believed he would be cleared to play in a fourth grand final.
"It is a little bit worrying but I know myself in the tackle there was nothing in it so I will just have to go down on Tuesday and fight the charge to obviously live out my dream of playing in the final again," Hodges told Channel Nine.
"At the moment I have to go through this issue with the NRL about my tackle but I am pretty confident I will be fine."
Guerra said after the Roosters' 31-12 loss to Brisbane that he had "jumped" to make the tackle look worse in a bid to earn a penalty after Hodges had grabbed him by the leg.
"I think common sense will prevail on that tackle," Guerra said. "It was a penalty, nothing more, nothing less – he'll be right."
Roosters chief executive Brian Canavan said the club had not yet been contacted about Guerra appearing at the hearing but it is likely that he would, with Fairfax Media told: "Queenslanders stick together".
Cowboys prop Ben Hannant, who will be lining up against his former club in the historic all-Quensland grand final, said he hoped Hodges was cleared to play.
"As a mate I would like to see him play and it is his last game but I don't think it looked good," Hannant told Triple M. "It is up to the judiciary whether there is any lenience there but for me I hope he gets off and he gets a chance to play because we want them to have our best team and us to have our best team so we can see who is the best team of 2015."
