The seemingly impossible has happened. Tiredness has caught up with Simon Mannering.
The iconic Warriors forward announced his pending retirement from rugby league at an emotional media event in Auckland on Wednesday.
Team-mates watched on as the 31-year-old explained why his unstinting career would end after his 14th season of NRL.
Former captain Mannering admitted he felt relief when making a decision that had gnawed at him for months.
He’d changed his mind multiple times but found his heart dropping at the prospect of another lung-busting pre-season and endless training drills.
“If I could just turn up on Saturday and keep playing then I’d love to carry on and do that,” he said.
“I just deep down don’t think I’ve got that commitment level to carry that on for another year.
“I just feel I’ve lost a little bit of that spark there. I love the game but, yeah, training sucks.”
Capped 44 times for New Zealand, former Kiwis skipper Mannering last month retired from international rugby league.
After months of wrestling with his club future, the 31-year-old made up his mind before the seventh-placed Warriors’ 26-6 demolition of Brisbane.
Mannering played like a man with a weight lifted off his shoulders, unleashing his best performance of 2018.
While his love of the sport burned, he conceded the drive to succeed was slowly tipping the same way as his legs.
“I just haven’t sort of felt the same. I’ve always invested in how the game goes and the performance and the win,” he said.
“But (lately) once we got that win, the satisfaction probably wasn’t what it used to be.
“There’s a number of guys who would jump out of their skin to be there and I just don’t think I’d be doing it justice if I wasn’t getting that satisfaction out of it.”
Injury allowing, he’ll stick around to become the club’s first triple-centurion.
Mannering’s 294th first grade game is against Melbourne in Auckland on Sunday.
Another six games and he will join Steve Price and Ruben Wiki as Warriors to reach 300. He will be first to do it solely for the Auckland club.
A tireless worker since his debut at centre aged 18 in 2005, he is best remembered for his consistent level of leadership and performances over the second half of his career during a lean run of Warriors results.
A club release estimated Mannering had made 9300 tackles and carried the ball 27,000m in about 370 hours of first grade football.
Mannering was grateful to Warriors management for granting him time to make a decision, particularly with the salary cap implications that are at stake.
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