Tom Rockliff has retired from AFL football at just 31 due to serious injury.<\/p>\n
The Port Adelaide player told teammates on Tuesday morning that his career was ending effective immediately. He has played just two AFL games this season and will now continue in a coaching capacity.<\/p>\n
Rockliff had surgery on both knees in May following a bad landing in a marking contest while playing in the SANFL. He was forced into a wheelchair and just a week later, hospitalised.<\/p>\n
Rockliff was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis after experiencing calf pain and multiple blood clots were found on his lungs. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rockliff ends his career on 208 AFL games; 154 with the Brisbane Lions, where he became captain, and 54 with Port.<\/p>\n
He was pick No.5 for the Lions in the 2009 draft and rose to become one of the AFL's outstanding midfielders. He was Brisbane's best and fairest in only his third season; an award he won again in 2014, when he was also named as an All Australian.<\/p>\n
He went to Port Adelaide after the 2017 season as a restricted free agent and was prominent in last year's minor premiership.<\/p>\n
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