Luke Lewis announces his NRL retirement — after 18 amazing seasons in rugby league
ONLY 13 men in rugby league’s 110-year history have bettered it … After an NRL career of which most can only dream, Cronulla veteran Luke Lewis will retire at the end of the season.
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LUKE Lewis reckons he could play on.
But would he be able to hold two-year-old daughter Hazel and four-month-old son Levi, for longer than forty seconds?
“That’s where the decision became easier,’’ Lewis told The Daily Telegraph.
“I want to be a father that hugs, holds, runs and plays with their kids. I want to keep fit, go for walks and runs along the beach.
“I could probably play next year.
“But I also want to get up in the morning without needing a hot shower before my joints get going and I’m right to go.’’
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Lewis, an NRL constant for an extraordinary 18 seasons, has declared he will retire at the end of this year with Cronulla.
Few footballers have lasted this long.
Only 13 have, to be exact, since rugby league began 110 years ago.
When Lewis unties his last boot lace, which he’s planning to do on grand final day, he’ll be 35.
So stunning is his career resume and list of achievements, NRL boss Todd Greenberg will need to present the backrower’s file in a concertina folder.
Lewis has played 315 games and is currently sitting 13th overall for most-ever games played.
His two premierships, first with Penrith in 2003 and then the Sharks in 2016, the Clive Churchill Medal that year, his 17 State of Origin appearances for NSW and 16 Tests for Australia, isn’t exactly normal.
But neither has been Lewis’ journey.
Raised by his mother and number one fan, Sharon, in the western Sydney suburb of Doonside, Lewis’ father walked out on the family when he was still an 18-month-old baby.
Lewis’ sister Krystie and his mum Sharon were his everything.
Sharon worked two jobs, just to give them exactly that.
“I was a single mum for a long time, so when the kids were out playing I just used to stand on the front porch and whistle for the kids to come home,” Sharon has said.
“I used to have to rob Peter to pay Paul.
“That’s just the way it used to be to make sure the kids had whatever they needed.’’
Footy, was one of those things with Lewis playing his first game at three years of age.
“And I’ve been playing ever since,’’ Lewis said.
“So when you think about the decision to finish this year, it’s given me a finish line and something I’m just going to go all out for in every game I’ve got left.’’
A Blacktown junior, Lewis made his NRL debut in 2001 with Penrith, as an 18-year-old on the wing.
Living his dream, he went onto play 208 matches for the club.
“Luke Lewis is Penrith,’’ former Panthers captain Petero Civoniceva, said famously about his successor in March, 2012.
Yet just four months later, Lewis would be a Panther no more.
A massive story at the time, Lewis was feeling jaded and unwanted, so he famously walked into Phil Gould’s Penrith office at 7.30am on a Tuesday morning, to ask for a release.
Lewis wanted a fresh start.
And he found it under Shane Flanagan in the Sutherland Shire with the Sharks.
More than a few had told Lewis the move would end his career. Clearly, they ignored or underestimated his character.
“Signing Luke Lewis for the 2013 season was pivotal to everything we wanted to achieve as a club,’’ Flanagan told The Telegraph.
“We wanted to become a team that played finals football every year and Luke was a representative player, who immediately added immeasurable force to our squad both on and off the field.
“While his impact on our club won’t ever be forgotten, we’re hoping he can do what his close mate Michael Ennis did in 2016 and achieve one last memory to take with him at the end of this season.’’
Undeniably, the sea-change only improved Lewis as a player.
Not even cancer, has halted this rugby league warrior’s continual upward curve in progression and impact as a footballer.
Over four days in 2014, Lewis sat inside a windowless room of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
A precautionary round of radiation treatment for the thyroid cancer scare he was diagnosed with in 2012, meant the door to his ward was locked from the outside world.
Lewis was only released from hospital once the radiation levels in his body had reached a safe level.
He was unable to have any personal contact other than from his wife Sonia, with the pair sleeping in separate bedrooms for one week.
Lewis also ate his breakfast, lunch and dinner from plastic plates and knives and forks, a precautionary measure to minimise the risk of passing any radiation on.
Yet just eight days after radiation treatment, Lewis, drove himself to training for the Sharks.
“The way I see it, the fitter you are the better chance you are of recovering quicker,’’ Lewis told The Telegraph at the time.
Nothing highlights Lewis’ humility as a person better than his display of composure and positivity through the cancer scare.
It’s typical of his no-fuss character.
Indeed, he told Sharks CEO Barry Russell last week that he didn’t want a formal press conference to announce his retirement.
“I’ll just announce it on NRL 360 and that’s enough,’’ Lewis said.
Lewis is nervous about next year, without the buzz of a game-day dressing room, preparing for a big game and of course, the unknown.
But you don’t last this long without a few mates to call on once that full-time whistle blows.
It’s why when to celebrate his 300th NRL match, almost 12-months to the day last year, Billy Slater, Paul Gallen, Royce Simmons, Andrew Johns, Wally Lewis, Brad Fittler, Craig Gower, John Lang, Scott Sattler, Ryan Girdler and Corey Parker all paid tribute to the “tall kid who began his career with blond tips in his hair’’.
At the same lunch, Lewis stood up and thanked his loving wife Sonia, who he first met when they were 14 and of course, his mum and sister.
He then told the room how two premierships weren’t enough for him, he wanted to be like five-time NFL Superbowl champion Tom Brady, with “my hand full of rings.’’
Lewis is retiring at the end of this season.
But you just know he’s not finished with yet.