Dual international Rogers retires

Dual international Mat Rogers has announced his retirement from professional sport after a glittering NRL and rugby union career.

The 34-year-old will finish up with the Gold Coast Titans at the end of 2010, after four seasons with the fledgling club, who were struggling to come up with enough money to keep him.

Rogers has played 194 first-grade matches and has a chance to notch 200 if the Titans progress deep into the finals.

“I feel like I can compete still but I think the time’s right to go out,” Rogers said.

“I think if I’m questioning whether I can go on or not next year the time’s right.”

The son of league legend Steve Rogers, the versatile back followed in his father’s footsteps and debuted for Cronulla in 1995, where he played 123 top-grade matches.

He was part of one of the club’s strongest but most heartbreaking eras – starring alongside the likes of Andrew Ettingshausen and David Peachey as the Sharks lost the Super League grand final to Brisbane in 1997, and preliminary finals in 1996, 1999 and 2001.

Rogers, also a first-class goal-kicker, trails only his father for the club’s all-time point-scoring record.

The brilliant winger played five Origin matches for Queensland, and was part of the Maroons side which retained the shield in 1999.

He also played 11 Tests for Australia, and was a major part of the Kangaroos’ World Cup-winning team in 2000.

Rogers then took a huge risk to walk out on the NRL at the height of his representative career to join the Australian Rugby Union with an ambition of running out for the Wallabies.

He achieved his dream alongside fellow league convert Wendell Sailor in a Test against France in June, 2002.

In that match, Rogers and Sailor became the 41st and 42nd Australian dual internationals.

Rogers played 45 Tests for the Wallabies and fullback in the team which lost the 2003 World Cup final in extra time in Sydney in 2003.

Playing fly-half, fullback, wing and centre during his Wallabies career, Rogers scored 163 points.

He played 45 matches for the NSW Waratahs in the Super rugby competition, where he amassed 202 career points.

Rogers then decided to return to rugby league for the Titans debut NRL season in 2007 – where he permanently became a five-eighth/centre and has played 71 matches for the Gold Coast.

Rogers revealed he had considered a return to rugby union after speaking with his former Waratahs coach Ewen McKenzie, who is now leading the Queensland Reds but said it was the right stage of his life to look beyond football.

“I think what I’ve done is enough,” he said.

“I’m just looking forward to the next chapter of my life and the last month has just made it easier.”

Eyeing a fairytale premiership-winning ending to his career, Rogers denied that money was a factor at all after the Titans tabled a one-year offer last week.

“It’s not a money thing it’s purely the time’s right for me (but) I think the best is yet to come,” he said.

“I don’t think the career highlight has come yet.”