Battle of the Matts (From This Is Cheshire)

Battle of the Matts

7:30am Friday 12th March 2010 in

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MATT King and Matt Orford will be Super League form players in opposite camps this weekend but they have an intriguing history as teammates and house mates.

Their ‘friendly’ rivalry, along with that of other Australians in both Warrington and Bradford camps, adds an extra twist to an already mouth-watering clash between honour-chasing teams at The Halliwell Jones Stadium on Saturday night.

Pocket battleship half back Orford, nicknamed Ox, came to 6ft 2ins King’s rescue when his career Down Under came to a crossroads.

King said: “It was while I was having my little mid-life crisis.

“I wanted to leave Sydney and couldn’t go to Brisbane so I ended up in Melbourne and Ox was good enough to put me up in his house.

“He could only give me the bed for a week because he had loads of family coming in from Sydney to stay with him, so during that time, I had to find somewhere permanent to stay.

“I quickly found out I was wasting a lot of money on petrol for my old banger so I went down to the local St Vinnie’s (St Vincent de Paul) and got myself a pushie (pushbike). It didn’t even have any tyres but I rode round on that for a while.

“I was grateful to Ox for helping me out. We’d been friends since we’d played together at Norths but lost touch a little bit.

“We had three good years together at Storm before he left to go back to Manly.”

King can see that Orford is now producing for Bradford what he brought to successful Melbourne and Manly sides and knows Wolves must defuse his talents on Saturday night.

“Those few years in Melbourne, he did so much for the team and the team revolved around him,” said King “For me, what makes him special is his competitiveness and will to succeed. He talks a lot on the field but I got so much more out of what he does. He’ll never back down from a challenge, which is why he loves to defend right in the middle and lines up against the big back rowers.

“He’s got a massive case of little man syndrome. If you tell him he can’t jump a six-foot fence, the next thing you know, he’ll be out there trying to prove you wrong.

“He’s tough to stop but it’s all about preparation. He’s a great player with a lot of special attributes but Tony (Smith, Wolves coach) knows this and I’m sure he’ll come up with a plan to get the better of him.”