Keary makes $800k call in shock retirement
The NRL career of Roosters champion Luke Keary will reportedly end prematurely.
Media outlets including The Sydney Morning Herald report the veteran five-eighth will this week announce his retirement from rugby league.
It’s expected Keary will see out this current season, but forfeit the last year of his contract, which is worth about $800,000.
The 32-year-old signed a one-year extension recently, but has supposedly now been convinced by friends and family to call it a day.
Keary has suffered a number of concussions in recent years.
Luke Keary is set to retire.
The news comes less than a week after Cronulla star Dale Finucane announced his premature retirement due to repeated head knocks.
Keary made his NRL debut in 2013 for South Sydney, and won the 2014 premiership alongside Adam Reynolds in the Rabbitohs line-up.
He jumped ship to rival club the Roosters in 2017, and won grand finals in 2018 and 2019 with the Tricolours.
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Despite being one of the NRL’s best five-eighths for a long period of time, Keary’s representative career never fully took off.
He played one Origin game for New South Wales in 2020 but was never seen in the Blues jersey again.
Luke Keary.
He played two Tests for Australia in 2018, and then represented Ireland at the 2022 World Cup.
Keary will be one of a number of high-profile players to leave the Roosters at season’s end.
Kiwi prop Jared Waerea-Hargreaves is retiring, while gun utility backs Joseph Manu and Joseph Suaalii are both jumping ship to play rugby.
Question marks remain over the futures of veteran winger Daniel Tupou and backrower Angus Crichton.