Saddest end of all for Sharks' favourite sonBy Jacquelin Magnay and Les Kennedy
January 4, 2006
Page 1 of 2
"A close friend and a Shark through and through" ... Steve Rogers with his wife, Ingrid, whom he married in 2003.
THE rugby league legend Steve Rogers had left a series of notes for his family before his sudden death in the stairwell of his waterfront unit at Cronulla.
Rogers, 51, was found slumped unconscious and fully dressed by his brother-in-law just before 9am yesterday on the first-floor landing after failing to answer morning phone calls.
Cronulla lifesavers, just 50 metres away, were summoned by distressed neighbours. But they were unable to resuscitate the Sharks' chief executive.
Rogers's son, the Australian rugby five-eighth Mat, rushed to the unit to formally identify his father after being contacted by a policeman who was a neighbour of his father.
Mat Rogers's girlfriend, the model Chloe Maxwell, and his long-time friend and business partner, Perry Haddock, arrived soon after to console the Wallaby star, who was overcome with shock.
The Sharks' president, Barry Pierce, who had also been contacted by police, struggled to control his sadness when he spoke about Rogers at the club's headquarters, alongside a trophy cabinet that included Rogers's Rothmans Medal won in 1975.
"On this sad day we have lost a close friend and a Shark through and through," he said.
The club's coach, Stuart Raper, who had been a ball boy for the Sharks when Rogers was the club's Test-playing centre, said there would be a sombre mood during the club's pre-season training, which resumes today after the new year break. "We will train as scheduled. That is the way Steve would want it and we will honour that," he said.
Cronulla players, including the club stalwart David Peachey, now playing in England, found the news hard to take in.
Les Boyd, the legendary Wests hard man who played all of his 17 Tests alongside Rogers, sobbed outside Leeton Golf Club when told of his friend's death.
The former St George coach and Herald league writer Roy Masters said Rogers was instinctive in his play.
"There was no point asking him how he did anything on the field any more than it was to ask Frank Sinatra how he summoned that voice. In attack, he moved like the surgeon's knife - the glide, then the quick incision. In defence, he hit bigger opponents like a lifetime supply of bad news."
The death of Rogers added another layer of sadness to the family, which was rocked in 2001 when his first wife, Carol, mother of Mat, Donny and Melanie, died after battling cancer.
Mat Rogers has had a particularly tough time of late, separating from his wife, Michelle. Similarly the relationship between Steve Rogers and his second wife, Ingrid Anderson, a local real estate agent whom he married at Port Douglas in February 2003, had been strained.
For more...
http://www.smh.com.au/news/league/the-saddest-end-of-all/2006/01/03/1136050443077.html?page=2I can empathise with Steve's mind set. Christmas-New Year is an emotional time and brings memories flooding back. He seems to have come to the end of his tether and ended his life himself. This time last year I was at the end of my tether and had a breakdown. There is an expression concerning suicide....
Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
BB... he may have been a 'thug' as you call him but in the 70's-80's and even now there are the odd thugs but that does not take away from his prowess as a great league player.
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