Fond farewell as World Cup winners will all leave on a high note
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Fond farewell as World Cup winners will all leave on a high note
September 3, 2010
Brad Walter
Between them, Mat Rogers, Trent Barrett and Brett Kimmorley have won a premiership, officially launched an NRL season, set points-scoring records and played for the Wallabies as well as the Kangaroos.
Collectively, the trio, who will all retire when their teams bow out of the premiership race, also have the rare distinction of playing together in Australia's last World Cup-winning team in 2000.
''We haven't got a lot of senior players as role models so it is a pity that we lose three good ones all at once,'' said former Kangaroos coach Chris Anderson, who has enjoyed a long relationship with each of them.
'''Noddy', Trent and Mat have all been good for the game, at every level they played. Everywhere they have gone they have done their best and been good role models for the blokes coming through. I think the game is better off for the three of them. They have all been good students of the game.''
So much so that Barrett and Kimmorley will take on specialist halves coaching roles with Cronulla and Canterbury respectively after playing their final games this weekend.
Rogers is also planning to undergo a coaching course, but only so he can help his son's under-15s team at Burleigh Bears next year. The dual international will continue to work for Gold Coast in a sponsorship and hospitality job after the Titans' finals campaign ends, hopefully with a premiership.
''There's been times, like with the Sharks in 1999, where we should have won, and that still haunts me,'' Rogers said. ''There is the potential for this year to haunt me too because I think we've got the team to do it so let's hope it doesn't.''
Of the trio, only Kimmorley has won a premiership - steering Melbourne to grand final glory in 1999 against Barrett's St George Illawarra side. But they have each left their mark on the game in other ways, with Rogers's 24-point haul against New Zealand in 2000 still the record for the most points scored in a trans-Tasman Test, and Barrett winning the 2000 Dally M award, captaining NSW in this year's final Origin match and launching the 2001 season with a speech at the Olympic Stadium before the opening game. ''I was pretty nervous doing that,'' Barrett recalled yesterday. ''There's been so many highlights over the years, I couldn't pick one.''
Barrett and Kimmorley were still playing well enough to be chosen for NSW this season. ''He stood up on some big occasions,'' Kimmorley said of Barrett. ''He was in and out of Origin, [it was] unknown when he was going to get picked again but every time he got to play, the calibre of the player he is showed.
''Especially coming back from England and playing well … the competitiveness of the bloke shows that he wasn't ready to be finished. He came back and played great for Cronulla.''
Unlike fellow former representative teammates Steve Price and Steve Simpson, who have had decisions about their futures determined by injuries, Kimmorley, Barrett and Rogers needed some convincing that the time was right to retire now, and all are happy to be able to stay involved with the game through their off-field roles.
''I played a lot of footy with Noddy and 'Rat' [Rogers], and it's good that we are still able to have some involvement in the game,'' said Barrett, who also has arranged work with the NRL and Country Rugby League. ''I think we've all been blokes who have tried to do the right thing, and I think that comes from the guys we were surrounded by when we came into grade.''