{"id":135809,"date":"2021-09-28T05:17:58","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T05:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=135809"},"modified":"2021-09-28T07:02:46","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T07:02:46","slug":"unexpected-twist-in-benjis-retirement-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=135809","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected twist in Benji's retirement plans"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Sydney<\/a> veteran Benji Marshall<\/a> has declared he may well extend his professional rugby league career into a 20th season, saying he certainly hasn't decided to retire after Sunday's grand final against Penrith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sunday will be his 346th NRL game and many people are expecting it to be his last.<\/p>\n

But the 36-year-old – who will be 37 by the time next season starts – told media today he has no intention of hanging up the boots after the premiership decider, despite his coach Wayne Bennett suggesting it will happen.<\/p>\n

During their training session today, some local Gold Coast kids performed a haka for Marshall, who is a graduate of rugby league nursery Keebra Park High. Marshall gave his training hat to one of the children.<\/p>\n

"Who knows, I might get a few hakas this weekend (because) everyone thinks I'm retiring," Marshall said.<\/p>\n

"Wayne said I am, anyway. I just laughed, I haven't even discussed retiring with Wayne at the moment.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/p>\n

"I think I've done a really good job in the last few years of playing each game as if it's my last, and then at the end of the season make a decision about what I want to do. It's not going to be any different this year.<\/p>\n

"The way my body feels right now, I could play next year for sure if I wanted to. But I will weigh all those things up at the end of the season, get through this weekend and give it a bit of time to sink in and then make a decision after that."<\/p>\n

Marshall's NRL career has looked like ending multiple times already over the years.<\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> Gallen's warning to NRL stars amid new scandal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE:<\/strong> David Warner dropped by IPL team<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In 2013 he was forced out of Wests Tigers – the club he won the 2005 grand final with – and left rugby league altogether, heading home to New Zealand to play rugby.<\/p>\n

That sojourn in the 15-man game didn't last long and St George Illawarra threw him a lifeline midway through the 2014 NRL season.<\/p>\n

His career looked over again until the Broncos – and Wayne Bennett – threw him a lifeline in 2017, and then the Tigers threw him yet another lifeline in 2018.<\/p>\n

\"South<\/p>\n

During the 2020 season Marshall was dropped by Tigers coach Michael Maguire and the club told him he would not be offered a new deal. Once again, it appeared Marshall's days in the NRL were over.<\/p>\n

That was until a phone call to Bennett – now Souths coach – from the golf course landed him a cut-price deal with the Bunnies and has ended with him playing another grand final, 16 years after his first.<\/p>\n

Marshall was asked whether the result of Sunday's game will be a factor in his decision to play on or retire.<\/p>\n

"Nah I haven't (thought about finishing with a premiership). For me, it's more about if you have the passion and desire to play, then why not?" he said.<\/p>\n

Marshall said playing the 2022 season doesn't mean he'll still be at South Sydney, opening himself up to offers from other NRL clubs.<\/p>\n

For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by<\/em><\/strong> clicking here!<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Sydney veteran Benji Marshall has declared he may well extend his professional rugby league career into a 20th season, saying he certainly hasn't decided […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135809"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=135809"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135811,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135809\/revisions\/135811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=135809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=135809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=135809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}