Canberra Raiders great Jarrod Croker will retire at the end of the 2023 NRL season after playing more than 300 games for the Green Machine.
The Raiders co-captain told his teammates on Thursday he wouldn’t seek to play on in 2024, having failed to meet the criteria in his contract to trigger a one-year extension.
The 32-year-old has spent 15 seasons with the Raiders, playing 305 NRL games and scoring 135 tries.
He will hang up his boots as the Raiders’ leading point scorer, and third on the NRL’s all-time points scoring list behind Melbourne great Cameron Smith and former Canterbury star Hazem El Masri.
The 32-year-old battled off knee and shoulder injuries in recent years to celebrate his 300th game in June, becoming just the second player in the club’s history to reach the milestone.
Raiders five-eighth Jack Wighton considers Croker “an absolute legend, loved by many”.
“If you can describe a Raider, it’s Jarrod Croker,” he said.
“Everybody knows that he’s a humble man and he’s done his business without making too much fuss for many, many years and he’s very respected down our way.
“It’s sad, but also awesome to see him be content and make that final move.”
Melbourne coach Craig Bellamy, who played 150 games for the Raiders himself, paid tribute to Croker, calling him “a terrific guy” who’d given tremendous service to Canberra “and the game in general”.
“He plays the game in a really good spirit,” Bellamy said.
“He was a wonderful centre, he was smooth on the ground and he could score tries from anywhere.
“But one of the things the Raiders might miss with him is how dependable he was with his goal kicking, and he’s done that for years.”
Stuart labels Raiders ’embarrassing’ after massive loss to the Storm
Croker is recovering from a hamstring injury and wasn’t on the field today for the Raiders’ loss to the Melbourne Storm.
The Raiders failed to cross the line even once while the Storm nailed four tries in the first half and five in the second, to make it 48-2 at the final siren.
Coach Ricky Stuart was scathing in his assessment of the Raiders’ performance and said he “wasn’t in the mood for talking” about Croker’s retirement, instead promising to comment on Monday.
“It was a really, really embarrassing performance, we went away after 20 minutes,” he said.
“We weren’t prepared to fight for the 80 [minutes] and they were.
“We were fighting for a top-four spot today and we delivered up that crap.”
But there’s still time for the Raiders to make amends, with Croker set to return next week.
ABC/AAP