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Jake Marketo hopes to use his shock City selection to bolster his chances of earning an NRL contract for 2018.
Marketo, 28, is off-contract at St George Illawarra at the end of the year, and is yet to taste any NRL action this year, making his push for another deal at the Dragons or elsewhere difficult.
But the forward hopes that can change with his surprise representative debut in Mudgee on Sunday.
“Hopefully it can attract something in club land and we’ll see what happens this year,” he said.
“I want to stay at the club but it’s still an early time in the year so we’ll see what happens.
“I’ll be learning from the blokes that are in the team and gain a little experience from this.”
Marketo was the biggest winner of the weekend’s representative farce.
He had not been named in the Dragons’ 21-man squad since round one, and after spending the entire season in reserve grade for Illawarra, Marketo has been piloted into City’s squad for one of the biggest games of his life.
More than 50 players rejected the opportunity to turn out for either the City or Country sides, but Marketo knows it could provide a career-changing opportunity for him.
The Wollongong junior has played 50 NRL matches since making his Dragons debut in 2011, but took on a more regular role in 2015 and 2016 following a short stint in Queensland Cup before this season’s exile.
“I understand I’m very lucky to be in the position I am for this week,” he said.
“A lot of great players pulled out and I was just lucky enough to have my name pulled out of the hat.”
Marketo was looking forward to a weekend off when he received the call from a friend on Monday morning that he would be joining the City bench.
“I had my best mate call me – Steve Roach’s son – and he informed me that I had been picked in the team because Sirro (Paul Sironen) had asked for my number,” he said.
“I obviously thought it was a joke and told him not to joke about that kind of thing, but then I had a message telling me to get to Sydney.”
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