{"id":11561,"date":"2012-06-17T11:30:08","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T09:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/rugby-former-wallabies-captain-mortlock-announces-retirement\/"},"modified":"2012-06-17T11:30:08","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T09:30:08","slug":"rugby-former-wallabies-captain-mortlock-announces-retirement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-former-wallabies-captain-mortlock-announces-retirement\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Former Wallabies captain Mortlock announces retirement"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">June 17<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; Melbourne Rebels captain Stirling<br \/>\nMortlock will end his playing career at the end of the Super<br \/>\nRugby season next month, the former Wallabies skipper said on<br \/>\nSunday.<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The 35-year-old veteran of 80 tests, including 29 as<br \/>\nAustralia captain, has been battling calf muscle injuries this<br \/>\nseason.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being on the sidelines for nine of 10 weeks this season was<br \/>\nextremely frustrating and tough. My body is back in the shape I<br \/>\nwant it to be but I think it is the right time,&#8221; said Mortlock,<br \/>\nwho excelled as an outside centre during his prime.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no secret I still love what I do and still love<br \/>\nplaying. It&#8217;s more about my body,&#8221; said Mortlock, who played<br \/>\nmore than 140 Super Rugby games since his 1998 debut at the<br \/>\nBrumbies.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mortlock&#8217;s final game on home soil will be against Super<br \/>\nRugby champions Queensland Reds on June 29 before he flies to<br \/>\nSouth Africa for the Rebels&#8217; last two matches.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Mortlock toured Argentina as a 20-year-old in 1998 but had<br \/>\nto wait two more years before making his test debut against the<br \/>\nsame opponents in Brisbane.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>His last test was against South Africa in Cape Town in 2009.<\/p>\n<p> (Writing by Amlan Chakraborty in New Delhi; Editing by John<br \/>\nO&#8217;Brien)<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright\">\n<p>         \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>June 17 (Reuters) &#8211; Melbourne Rebels captain Stirling Mortlock will end his playing career at the end of the Super Rugby season next month, the former Wallabies skipper said on Sunday. The 35-year-old veteran of 80 tests, including 29 as Australia captain, has been battling calf muscle injuries this season. &#8220;Being on the sidelines for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11561","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}