Former NSW Blues hooker Nathan Peats has revealed the main reason behind his decision to hang up the boots and retire from the sport.
This comes after the hooker announced his retirement from the sport last month, having played just over 230 first-grade rugby league games.
Speaking to Serious About Rugby Leauge, Peats detailed the reasons behind his retirement, revealing it came down to a couple of things.
The first is due to his mother battling cancer for the second time, and the second is due to his body not being what it used to be.
“It came down to a couple of things, mainly my Mum has been battling cancer for the second time and I want to be closer to her and support her.” Peats told Serious About Rugby League.
He also explained: “other things were my body wasn't holding up as well as it used to, first time in my career where my body was really struggling to get up for games and training and lastly my performances started to dip at that stage of season.
"I felt like I started year off in decent form, then it dropped at that point where our season started declining.”
“It was maybe just before the halfway point of the season where my wife and I started having conversations about it at home.”
Peats debuted for his junior club, the South Sydney Rabbitohs, early in the 2011 season, quickly implementing himself as a regular face in the NRL as the 32-year-old racked up 54 games in three seasons for the Bunnies.
However, the then-youngster spent the majority of his time in Redfern trapped behind Issac Luke in the pecking order, leading to an ill-fated two-and-a-half seasons with Parramatta, ending in his release due to salary cap dramas.
While it meant Peats was resigned to spending the final four-and-a-half years of his NRL career up north with the Gold Coast Titans, some would argue his best time in the NRL was with them. He would also play all three games for the NSW Blues in the 2017 State of Origin series whilst with the Titans.
After departing the NRL at the end of 2020, he would register stints with the Leigh Leopards (2021), RC Albi (2022), Toulouse Olympique (2022) and Huddersfield Giants (2023) before deciding to hang up the boots.
Peats would go on to explain that he intends to return to Australia at the start of next year.
“We are here in England for another few months," Peats continued.
"We have a dog here and he can't enter Australia until early January because Australia is really strict with entry requirements for pets, but also the house we own on the Gold Coast, we have people renting it and that lease runs until early January as well.
"So we stuck in the cold for a little bit more.”
