Souths superstar to sign off: Inglis makes early retirement call

This will be Greg Inglis’s final rep season, and then he’ll fully retire at the end of 2020 when his current deal with South Sydney ends.

He made the announcement to Rabbitohs members via a video on the club website, and said it was a decision he had been wrestling with since November.

“A decision I’ve made purely on my own... something I’ve been thinking about for the last two and a half months — at the end of 2020 I’ll be hanging up the boots,” he said.

“I’ll be giving away the game but I’ll be staying around this club hopefully for a long time after I retire.”

In a shock call, the champion fullback turned centre revealed he wouldn’t consider playing for the Maroons or Kangaroos in 2020.

“For the next two years I’ll be giving it everything I can to this great club, 2019 will be my last rep season, therefore next year will be solely concentrated on the mighty South Sydney Rabbitohs.

“It’s eight years now I’ve been at this club and every single moment, every single year, I know I’ve had a number of different coaches around and staff but one thing that hasn’t changed is the passion that you guys give to us each and every week.”

The 32-year-old has done just about everything in the game.

He won two grand finals with the Storm before the premierships were stripped over salary cap breaches, he helped lead the Rabbitohs to their drought-breaking title in 2014, won a Clive Churchill Medal and Golden Boot, and has been a mainstay in the Australian Test side and Maroons since 2006, even captaining his state last year.

The two glaring omissions from his glittering CV is that he’s yet to captain the Kangaroos in a Test, and win the Dally M Medal.

He‘s currently played 264 NRL games, so could potentially notch 300 before he bows out.

It will certainly give the Bunnies more motivation to send out their long-time leader with another premiership in the cardinal and myrtle.