Rugby league: Simon Mannering returns to Warriors in mentorship role for 2020 NRL season

Simon Mannering will return to the Warriors in a mentorship role. Photo / Photosport

After taking a year away from rugby league, Simon Mannering has returned to the Warriors for the upcoming season.

Mannering has agreed to return to the club on a part-time basis in a mentoring role, which will see him work with teams from the club's juniors to its first-grade side beginning in the preseason.

"The purpose of his role is to really utilise his experience in the game," Warriors chief executive Cameron George told Radio Sport.

"The manner in which he played the game, we all know how good he was and the unique characteristics he had. So we want to instil that throughout the club and there's no better person to implement those certain attributes that he carried throughout his career than Simon himself."

Mannering played 301 NRL games for the Warriors over a 14-year span, spending his entire career with the club before retiring at the end of the 2018 season. Throughout his career he made a name for himself as a workhorse and a true professional who would perform to the highest level week after week.

The 33-year-old and his family moved to Australia after he retired, and he spent 2019 in a part-time role with the Brisbane Broncos women's team. George said he was returning to the club with a refreshed view of the sport.

"When Simon decided that he wanted to retire in 2018, he was tired; both physically and mentally. He'd had a long career although he's only a young guy. For someone that did the most work most weekends you could tell it was certainly taking its toll on him," George said.

"The important thing for him and his family was to get away from the game and freshen up.

"It's going to be hugely beneficial for our club without a doubt…we're not going to waste the opportunity to have Simon around."