Newcastle's Josh Starling retires from NRL

Sep 21, 2017 - 6:55 AM Newcastle prop Josh Starling will retire from the NRL after the club opted against re-signing a number of off-contract players at season's end.

Starling, who played 80 games for South Sydney, Manly and Newcastle, confirmed on Wednesday his NRL career was over as he headed to Bathurst to play bush footy.

He was among five players released by Nathan Brown in the past fortnight.

They will now become free agents over the summer.

Youngsters Jaelen Feeney and Pauli Pauli headline the list, along with former St George Illawarra forward Jack Stockwell and lock David Bhana.

Pauli's release caps off a particularly frustrating year for the young off-contract forward.

The 23-year-old, who debuted for Parramatta in 2014, was a regular fixture of Newcastle's NRL team in 2016 before a serious pre-season car crash saw him miss the first month of 2017.

He represented NSW City Origin as a player availability crisis hit the team but he failed to work his way back into Newcastle's top side.

Meanwhile, Feeney played eight games in the halves this year for the Knights but has been considered superfluous to the Knights' needs with Kalyn Ponga and Connor Watson joining the club next year.

Source: AAP