NRL 2016: Newcastle Knights prop Kade Snowden is set to announce his retirement due to injury
A FORMER NSW and Australia representative has played his last game in the NRL and is set to announce his premature retirement from rugby league.
ANOTHER former State of Origin and Test forward has played his last match in the NRL with Newcastle prop Kade Snowden set to be medically retired at the end of this season.
In a situation similar to the Parramatta Eels call on Anthony Watmough, Snowden has succumbed to chronic back, neck and knee injuries.
Snowden, 29, has only managed one NRL match this season under new coach Nathan Brown before a combination of injuries began to make training too hard.
After Brown dropped Snowden following the opening round, club insiders began to question whether his body was medically-fit to hold up to the rigours of another NRL season.
Under the NRL’s revised rules about when players are medically retired, Snowden will be paid all of the final year of his contract next season despite being unable to lace a boot.
Crucially, because Snowden is tipped to be deemed medically retired, the final year of his contract will not count on Newcastle’s salary cap next year.
For a brief period in 2010 and 2011, Snowden was considered among the best prop forwards in the NRL.
His career also had tinges of controversy, with the Newcastle local junior shifting to Cronulla before returning to the Hunter after one-time tyrannical Newcastle owner Nathan Tinkler personally telephoned him.
Despite having agreed to terms on a new two-year deal with Cronulla at the time, Snowden backflipped and joined Tinkler and Wayne Bennett at the Knights on a contract worth $1.6 million over four seasons.
It was a huge call at the time and the Knights faithful considered it a coup given Snowden was a local junior who had been lured away.
But the prop forward never lived up to expectations.
After publicly admitting he’d failed to deliver on the huge price tag in 2015, Snowden agreed to a two-year extension at the Knights last year taking him through until the end of next season.
At the height of his career as a front-row forward, Snowden was selected to play a Test for Australia in 2011 and made two State of Origin appearances for NSW in 2010-11.
Whereas Watmough and the Parramatta Eels are attempting to recoup his $1.5 million retirement payout through an insurance claim, the Knights remain undecided on whether they will make a similar claim for Snowden.