Former NSW Blues and NRL hooker Nathan Peats has joined a new team for this season, despite announcing his retirement from rugby league at the end of 2023.
Last playing in the NRL in 2020, Peats had been plying his trade overseas for the past four seasons before returning to his home on the Gold Coast, Australia.
Having returned home, it has been confirmed that Peats has signed with the Tugun Seahawks - a team that competes in the Rugby League Gold Coast A grade competition.
A South Sydney Rabbitohs junior, the hooker was a regular face in the club's first-grade line-up featuring in 54 games in three seasons after his debut in early 2021.
However, he would make the move to the Parramatta Eels after being stuck behind Issac Luke. Here, he made 35 appearances in a three-year stint before moving clubs yet again.
At the Gold Coast Titans, Peats would play his best footy of his career which would see him play all three games of the 2017 State of Origin series for the NSW Blues.
Overseas, he has represented the Leigh Leopards, Huddersfield Giants, RC Albi, and Toulouse Olympique.
Nathan Peats admitted last year that his surprising retirement from rugby league was due to two main reasons, one of which was his body's decline.
“It came down to a couple of things, mainly my Mum has been battling cancer for the second time and I want to be closer to her and support her.” Peats told Serious About Rugby League.
He also explained: “other things were my body wasn't holding up as well as it used to, first time in my career where my body was really struggling to get up for games and training and lastly my performances started to dip at that stage of season.
"I felt like I started year off in decent form, then it dropped at that point where our season started declining.”
“It was maybe just before the halfway point of the season where my wife and I started having conversations about it at home.”