Three words turned Rogers around

[TITAN PETE]

Pat McLeod | September 6th, 2010

'COME home Matty'. Almost five years ago, those three words drew troubled soul Mat Rogers out of his own personal wilderness.

Last Friday night, free and happy of spirit, Rogers truly was home playing the NRL game he loves in front of thousands of people who are more than adoring fans.

They are now his family who have welcomed the champion into their hearts.

Skilled Park was a celebration, a cheering mass of Titans fans focused as much on helping their team to a sterling victory against the Tigers as showing Rogers how much he means to this city.


The 34-year-old dual international has announced this will be his last season in rugby league. His body has finally said 'enough'. Hopefully he will leave the game on a sporting high.

Hopefully the Titans can keep on winning and take out their inaugural NRL premiership in just their fourth season in the national competition.

Rogers will certainly leave the game on a personal high. On the field and off it, 2010 has been a stellar year.

He has defied age with some of the best form of his career and, with wife Chloe and their children Max and Phoenix, he is an extremely happy family man.

So different from 2006 when Titans boss Michael Searle happened across Rogers at a cafe on Cronulla Beach.

Searle believes Rogers was close to walking away from sport.

"There was no doubt Matty was a troubled soul back then," recalls Searle.

He was in his fifth season in rugby union since swapping codes in 2002.

He had certainly scaled the heights in rugby, playing 46 Tests with the Wallabies, but the fit still wasn't right.

Rogers was still grieving the loss of his father, rugby league great Steve Rogers, who had passed away that January.

During that '06 meeting, Searle simply asked his friend, 'Come home Matty'.

It was a plea to not only return to the game he loved, league, but also to the city where he belonged -- the Gold Coast.

Both Steve and Mat are synonymous with Cronulla and their football team, the Sharks, but the Rogers family has long and close links with the Gold Coast.

Steve came here with his parents in the early '70s and began his senior rugby league career on the tourist strip.

As a 17-year-old he starred for the Southport Tigers when they won the local premiership against a Seagulls team captain-coached by Searle's father Tom.

After a brilliant Sydney-based playing career, Steve Rogers returned to the Gold Coast with his family in the late 1980s.

Mat attended TSS and played Australian schoolboys rugby union before returning to Sydney and the Sharks.

The '06 meeting proved fateful. Within 24 hours Mat had agreed to 'come home'. It was as if the call he didn't even realise he was waiting for had finally come.

In putting together his squad to debut in 2007, Searle had emphasised that he was buying the 'person before the player'.

Rogers appeared to be the exception.

His years in rugby had not been without controversy and even his introduction to the Gold Coast had all the trappings of a rock star reception.

Covered in 'ink' and sporting a diamond in both ears, he appeared before the media here late in 2006 through a thick pall of stage smoke, loud music and flashing lights.

But as Titans skipper Scott Prince points out, Rogers is 'very normal'.

"It took a while for the layers to peel back," says Prince.

"But as they did and the more you got to know 'The Rat' the more you realise what a great, down-to-Earth bloke he is."

That's also the person Sam Stewart has come to know.

Stewart, the former Kiwi and Newcastle Knights enforcer, now coaches juniors at the Burleigh Bears. One of his young players is Rogers' son Jack, 14, from his first marriage.

"Mat comes down twice a week for training," says Stewart.

"I give all the parents a job, Mat as well. His forte obviously is his knowledge of the game so he helps me out on the ground, holding the pads.

"He complains the kids hit too hard.

"Mat just wants to be the best Dad he can be and I think that is a major reason why he is retiring.

"We are in the grand final on Saturday and Mat will be there.

"He was there when we had our pre-grand final dinner on Thursday night.

"Jack presented him with a club shirt as a thank you.

"Mat came up, accepted it and then gave his boy a big kiss and cuddle."

Much the same as the people of the Gold Coast did to one to their favourite sons last Friday night at Skilled.

[Coaster]

Great story, I remember him playing for Nerang Roosters as a kid, he was a couple of years younger then me, and we were waiting to play and watching the lower grades, he really stood out.