Matthew Rodwell is a former professional

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer. He played for the Newcastle Knights,

Western Reds The Western Reds were a rugby league football club based in Perth, Western Australia. Founded in 1992 as the Western Reds, they entered into the Australian Rugby League competition in 1995 before defecting to the rival Super League competition i ...

, St. George Dragons,

St. George Illawarra Dragons The St. George Illawarra Dragons is an Australian professional rugby league football club, representing both the Illawarra and St George regions of New South Wales. The club has competed in the National Rugby League since 1999 after a joint-ve ...

, Penrith Panthers and the Warrington Wolves as a .

Career

Australia

After making his first grade début from the bench for the Knights in

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of Humankind, humanity on Earth, Astroph ...

in a 24–4 loss to Balmain at

Leichhardt Oval Leichhardt Oval is a rugby league and soccer stadium in Lilyfield, New South Wales, Australia. It is currently one of three home grounds for the Wests Tigers National Rugby League (NRL) team, along with Campbelltown Stadium and Western Sydney S ...

, Rodwell spent almost all of that year and

1991 File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phil ...

playing in

reserve grade In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

. In

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

, Knights coach

David Waite David Waite (born 30 May 1951) is an Australian former rugby league footballer and coach. He has also coached Great Britain in the Rugby League Tri-Nations. Background Waite was born in New South Wales, Australia. Waite holds a British passpo ...

moved Michael Hagan to and brought Rodwell into the first grade side as the halfback. Rodwell had a brilliant rookie season as the Knights reached the Semi-finals for the first time in their 5-year history. For his efforts, Rodwell won the

Dally M The Dally M Awards are the official annual player awards for the National Rugby League competition. As well as honouring the player of the year, who received the Dally M Medal, awards are also given to the premier player in each position, the b ...

Rookie of the Year in 1992 as well as the Norwich Rising Star award. Despite playing 19 games in

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

(and being featured in the NSWRL's television advertisement featuring

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer o ...

and Jimmy Barnes singing Turner's hit song ''"

Simply the Best Simply may refer to: * Simply (Blossom Dearie album), ''Simply'' (Blossom Dearie album), 1982 * Simply (K. T. Oslin album), ''Simply'' (K. T. Oslin album), 2015 * "Simply", a song by De La Soul from the 2001 album ''AOI: Bionix'' * Simply Market, ...

"'' with the line "I think rugby league has changed enormously in the past few years"), both Rodwell and the Knights had disappointing seasons finishing in 9th place. Rodwell did not play first grade at all in

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

, and signed with new team, the

Perth Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth is ...

based Western Reds for

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is O. J. Simpson murder case, acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the 1994, year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The ...

. Signing a contract (like most of his Reds teammates) with the rebel

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

in early 1995, Rodwell stayed with the team until the end of the 1997 Super League season.Alan Whiticker/Glen Hudson: Encyclopedia of Rugby League Players, 1995. With Super League and the Australian Rugby League (ARL) calling an end to the Super League war which had torn the game apart to form the National Rugby League (NRL) in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The '' Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently ...

, and with the Reds left out of the new competition, Rodwell found himself back in Sydney at the famous St George club. The following year the Dragons merged with the

Illawarra Steelers The Illawarra Steelers are an Australian rugby league football club based in the city of Wollongong, New South Wales. The club competed in Australia's top-level rugby league competition from 1982 until 1998. On the 13th of December 1980, the ...

to become the St George Illawarra Dragons, and Rodwell found himself on the outer with team coach David Waite preferring young Steelers half Trent Barrett and he only appeared in 8 games in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, missing a place in the Dragons

1999 NRL Grand Final The 1999 NRL Grand Final was the conclusive and premiership-deciding game of the 1999 NRL season. It was contested by the competition's two newest clubs: the Melbourne Storm, competing in only its second year (having finished the regular season ...

side where in front of a world record rugby league attendance of 107,999 the Dragons lost 20–18 to the Melbourne Storm. Rodwell was on the move again in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

, this time to the Penrith Panthers where he would play the final two years of his career in Australia.

England

Matthew Rodwell signed with the

club the Warrington Wolves for 2002's

Super League VII Super League VII (styled Tetley's Super League VII due to sponsorship from Tetley's Brewery) was the year 2002's Super League championship season, the 108th season of top-level professional rugby league in Britain, and the seventh run by the Super ...

, and he retired from playing at the end of 2002, with the Warrington Wolves finishing in 10th place with just 7 wins and 21 losses.

Post-playing

Rodwell was the Chief Executive of the

Rugby League Players Association The Rugby League Players Association is a representative organisation based in Australia. The RLPA, as it is more commonly referred to, is the representative body of elite rugby league players, protecting and promoting the welfare and interests ...

until April 2009, when he left the role to take up an Executive Manager role with the insurance company, GIO. Rodwell is now a General Manager at claims management company EML. Rodwell was named the '' Cleo'' Bachelor of the Year in 1993.

References

External links

Corporate Profiles
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodwell, Matthew 1971 births Living people Australian rugby league players Newcastle Knights players Penrith Panthers players Rugby league halfbacks Rugby league players from New South Wales St. George Dragons players St. George Illawarra Dragons players Warrington Wolves players Western Reds players