Nuts bolts up the boots
... played the final match of his 273-game professional career in the
Cronulla Sharks’ disappointing 28-0 defeat to Melbourne Storm in their
NRL preliminary
...
Source: http://www.thewesterner.com.au/pages/blogs.aspx?ID=2277
Nuts bolts up the boots
Wednesday, 22 October 2008
Source: Lee Oliver
One of the Pine Rivers region’s finest rugby league products has laced up a football boot for the final time.
Danny Nutley, who grew up at Kallangur, attended Holy Spirit School at Bray Park and worked at his parent’s Dayboro bakery as a youngster, has closed the curtain on a decorated 12-year career spent on both sides of the globe.
The 34-year-old, nicknamed "Nuts", played the final match of his 273-game professional career in the Cronulla Sharks’ disappointing 28-0 defeat to Melbourne Storm in their NRL preliminary final last month.
A one-time State of Origin representative, the hard-hitting prop forward kicked off his football career two decades ago, when he "just wanted to play footy with my mates".
"I wanted to hang out more with my mates, and footy was a way to do it," said Nutley, who started playing for the Redcliffe Dolphins as a 14-year-old.
"We went and played on the weekends for a bit of fun."
After progressing through the ranks to play at Queensland Cup level for the Dolphins, Nutley, pictured, joined the now defunct national league club the South Queensland Crushers in 1997.
When the Crushers folded at the end of that season amid the aftermath of the sport’s debilitating "Super League war", Nutley linked with English Super League club Warrington, where he stayed for four years.
Splitting playing stints in the northern hemisphere with Warrington and Castleford with a four-year term at Cronulla, Nutley returned to Australia to link with the Sydney Roosters in 2007, before rejoining the Sharks part-way through this year.
"I enjoyed everything about living there (Cronulla) – the lifestyle, the players, the club were always good to me, so that’s why I reckon I played my best football there," Nutley said.
Nutley, who was voted into the illustrious Super League Dream Team in 2006 despite hating the "cold, miserable" lifestyle of the working class coalmining town of Castleford, attributed his football success to hard work.
"Mate, I had no skills at all – I just worked hard," said Nutley, who is glad to have have seen the last of two equally tough rivals on a football field.
"(New Zealand’s) Ruben Wiki you always kept one eye open and the other eye on him when you played him, and (Melbourne’s) Mick Crocker is always tough to play against."
Nutley says he leaves rugby league with no regrets, not even the fact his State of Origin debut for Queensland at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium in 2005 was his sole appearance in a maroon jersey.
"State of Origin is the biggest and best comp in the world and that was an amazing experience and I loved every minute of it," Nutley said.
"You can’t describe the noise when you run out (onto the field) – you couldn’t even hear yourself think. I’m just thrilled that I could play one game."
As well as surviving the Super League feud, the demise of the Crushers, freezing English weather and the rough and tumble nature of being a rugby league forward, Nutley prides himself on having remained intact on-field.
"I never had an operation my whole career on any part of my body, and in the last 10 years of my career I’ve never missed a game through injury," he said. "My wife looked after me well."
Nutley intends to move with his family to the Sunshine Coast, before establishing a business to import goods from China.
"I want to do something for myself after footy and am keen to do something away from football that challenges me," he said.