Gunnedah stalwart Matt Roseby 'pumped' for first major semi-final

The best laid plans of retirement never really stood a chance against the lure of one last shot at elusive premiership glory.

After 14 years pulling on the red and navy, the Gunnedah stalwart had decided last season was it.

Between four young kids, work commitments and rugby commitments - for the last four or five years he has also been doing some junior coaching - the 37-year old said it was getting "harder and harder". His body was also telling him it was time, the effects of a game on Saturday still lingering into mid-week.

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He had initially thought about retiring in 2020 but when the season was called off without a ball being kicked, he felt it "was a year too early" for him. So after last season it was.

"I had all the offseason to sort of think about it and try to accept it," Roseby said.

And he thought he had. But like many before him, he found it a slippery slope from being back in the footy environment to lacing up the boots again.

Call it a sense of unfinished business.

After initially just going along to watch a few of their home games, as invariably happens one thing led to another, and the second rower started going along to training. From there it was "inevitable unfortunately"; the feeling off a missed opportunity last year with the abrupt ending to the season too tough to resist.

"We didn't get the chance to win the premiership so I had to give it one more crack," Roseby said.

"And there's a handful of guys that were looking to retire last year if we could finish the season off as well."

"I've been playing with some of those guys for 10 years so it was too hard an offer to refuse to come back and play again."

And so against Narrabri in the final game of the first round he made his return off the bench in second grade.

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Quickly working his way up to first grade, just over two months on he is preparing to play his first-ever major semi-final with the Red Devils hosting the Blue Boars on Saturday in what will be their first shot at hosting the grand final since 2004.

"I'm pumped," he said.

"It's not so much nerves but excitement now. You sort of get a bit nervous when the normal competition rounds finish but we've had a couple of weeks now to have some good training sessions and think about it.

"Everyone's comfortable with what we need to do."

Captain three years ago when they lost to eventual champions Pirates in the minor semi-final, Roseby admits that day "still burns" in his memory.

But as much as it hurt, they do take some lessons from that.

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"Certainly there's a bit of thought there to not push ourselves too hard, too early and peak too early. It's obviously an 80 minute game, you can't win the first half and put the cue in the rack and the job's done," he said.

They go in having been beaten by the Blue Boars just two weeks ago.

But Roseby said they know they are a better side than what they "put up" then.

One of the big things will be their discipline. They gave easy penalties to the Blue Boars through "silly mistakes" in defence and at the breakdown, and made it easy for them "to come out of their half and get themselves back into an attacking zone".

"We've spoken a lot about that at training, to try and cut out those errors and not give them free ball through penalties," Roseby said.

The first grade game kicks-off at 3pm.

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