Alan Tongue of Canberra Raiders announces retirement
Alan Tongue, who captains the Canberra Raiders has announced his retirement from Rugby League on August 17, at a Press Conference in Canberra Stadium.
He is sure about his plans of quitting from the playing career a year prior to the end of the term in 2012 according to his contract.
With this decision made he will be out of the rugby playing palette by the end of this season 2011, although his contract still allows him to play for another year.
According to him this National Rugby League (NRL) season will be his last which was also pretty frustrating season for him as it was heavily punctuated by injuries.
While explaining the reason for his announcement, he added, “Over the past few seasons I've sustained some injuries which have been hard to fully overcome and I know that if I continue to force myself to play with these, I'll be paying for it in the short
term by letting down my team mates, but more importantly in the long term by impacting my life after footy.”
Likewise, this year has not been a very fruitful one for his team either, as it had struggled with their position on the NRL hierarchy.
While talking about his retirement decision, Tongue stated, “I can say with pride that I've given everything I can to the club, to my team-mates and to the Raiders jersey.”
Convinced about his decision, Tongue believes that playing for over a decade with the Raiders he has given in maximum to the game and is sure about his decision of forging the option of playing for another year according to his contract.
Breaking out the retirement plan to the Raiders was branded by him as one of the toughest decision taken by him. He thanked his franchise for granting him the opportunity to play for them for 13 years. It was however a huge decision on his part as he had
captained Raiders for the past five consecutive years as well.
The 30-year-old, Tongue who considers that he is to pay back to rugby league, is at peace with his final take about his playing career.
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