The pain of missing the NRL finals is fuelling seven Canberra Raiders stars as they hit the training paddock in the lead up to the Word Cup.
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Raiders and England hooker Josh Hodgson was crowned the Rest of the World representative player of the year at the Rugby League Players Association awards earlier this week.
He says it's always nice to get the recognition but "it would have been a lot nicer if [Canberra] made the finals this year and were making a run of things and still playing".
Hodgson admits he isn't too interested in watching finals football with the Raiders out of the picture and it's fuelling his desire to help England to a shock World Cup win.
Josh Papalii looms as the only Australian representative, with Hodgson and Elliott Whitehead all but locked in for England, while Jordan Rapana and Joe Tapine are in line for New Zealand.
They have all linked up at Raiders headquarters alongside Joey Leilua, who will likely represent Samoa, and Papua New Guinean rake Kurt Baptiste.
Papalii played in Australia's 2013 World Cup win on the back of a strong showing for the Prime Minister's XIII and he'll be hoping for a similar dose of success this time around.
Papalii has been named for the Prime Minister's XIII's clash with Papua New Guinea on September 23 but Raiders teammates Shannon Boyd and Junior Paulo were overlooked, leaving their Australian ambitions in doubt.
But Hodgson refused to rule out the prospect of even more Green Machine stars turning out in the World Cup, with Paulo and many others in the frame for second-tier nations.
"They're just the names that have stayed around in Canberra, obviously there'll be a few other boys that are in contention that have gone back to their hometowns and are just ticking over by themselves there," Hodgson said.
"In terms of the people that are hanging around here, it's just those boys up to now."
England sit third behind Australia and New Zealand in the RLIF world rankings but 27-year-old Hodgson says the visitors are primed to launch a raid on the World Cup.
They fell well below expectations under coach Wayne Bennett in last year's Four Nations and Hodgson is coming with a point to prove in red and white.
"I think we're building year on year," Hodgson said.
"Last year was a little disappointing in the Four Nations but the outing we played against a very strong Samoa team in the mid-season Test was a great performance by us.
"We showed some real signs of improvement with a couple of people still out of that squad that didn't play, people like Gareth Widdop, I'm sure we'll see them coming to the fore as well.
"We've got a really strong, healthy squad and we'll be really working hard and pushing to be really competitive."
Hodgson has been a revelation for the Green Machine since joining the NRL in 2015 and finished seventh in last year's Dally M voting.
His international and club teammate Whitehead followed him and became an instant success in the capital.
Now Hodgson has backed plenty more Super League stars to force their way into the NRL's ranks.
"Obviously it comes down to every individual and what they're like with their present club at the moment but there's some really good and really talented English players that I'm sure would do really well over here," Hodgson said.
"But they've obviously got their own clubs they're at now and they're probably concentrating on that, and not really thinking too much about all the stuff outside of that."
