Although Rogers will no longer feature in the Wallabies' long-term plans, Wallabies coach John Connolly today pledged his support for Rogers in whatever decision he made.
"We've spoken to Mat over the last couple of days and the decision that he makes we'll support," Connolly told Sydney's Radio 2KY.
"We've had a good chat ... we discussed his future, what was best for him at times."
Although Rogers switches codes right after the World Cup, Connolly said it wouldn't affect his participation in that tournament in France.
"No, of course not. The team will be picked on merit. He's a wonderful player and probably fair to think, if fit, he'll be at the World Cup," Connolly said.
"At the moment he's been in the 22 whenever fit and an important player off the bench this year but you could probably see him providing more next year," he said.
"He's played very well at 12, he's played 10 for the Waratahs and for Australia, he's also played fullback for Australia and wing, he's a very valuable utility player and there's no doubt we'd like to work him into the team somewhere.
"It's a matter of where."
Rogers, one of three big-name league players recruited by the ARU before the 2003 World Cup, told senior union officials of his plans during a meeting at the InterContinental hotel in Sydney late yesterday.
A winger during his league career with Cronulla, Queensland and Australia, Rogers is likely to play either five-eighth or full-back when he returns.
Lote Tuqiri and Wendell Sailor, the two other major league stars to switch codes, have also expressed a desire to return to the NRL. Sailor, who is serving a two-year ban for cocaine use, last weekend declared he wanted to join St George Illawarra if he succeeded in having the penalty reduced at an upcoming appeals hearing.
Tuqiri has often stated that he would like to return to league after next year's World Cup.
The Sharks' point-scoring whiz Rogers signed with the ARU in 2002 in a five-year deal worth at least $350,000 a season and $10,000 a match in Wallaby payments. At the time he was on $320,000 a season with the Sharks and had played State of Origin for Queensland and for Australia. He grew up on the Gold Coast and represented Queensland in rugby as a schoolboy in 1993.
Rogers has 41 Wallabies Test caps and has played full-back, centre and at flyhalf.
His father Steve, 51, an Australian rugby league representative, was found dead in January on the stairs of the block of flats where he lived in Cronulla with his second wife, Ingrid.
There were no suspicious circumstances but he had been suffering from depression. Rogers's mother Carol died in 2001, after a battle with cancer, which devastated him and his siblings Don and Melanie. Rogers has two children, Jack and Skyla, with his first wife, Michelle.