Steve Johnson has announced he will retire from AFL football at the end of the season. The GWS forward has become the latest AFL veteran to announce his retirement.

Stevie-J the man the legend

Best known to fans as ‘Stevie-J’, he has been blessed with so much talent talent and a tendency to kick goals at crucial moments. Johnson has played a total of 289 AFL games since making his debut in round six, 2002. He is set to hang up the boots with more than 500 goals to his name.

Stevie-J won three premierships with Geelong before joining GWS at the end of 2014.

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Stevie-J quotes

“When I finished at Geelong in 2015 I felt I had more to give. That decision was justified,” Johnson said at a press conference today.

“I think that decision [to play on at GWS] has been justified.”

“I feel very content that I’ll be leaving the game with nothing left in the tank.

“The body’s been battling throughout this season. It’s been a bit of a grind.”

“I’d love nothing more than to finish off with a few goals in a grand final.”

“Rather than dodge questions going into the next six weeks, I thought I’d knock it on the head now and put my focus on footy,” he said.

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An abondance of retirements

Stevie-J joins Luke Hodge, Nick Riewoldt, Sam Mitchell, Scott Thompson, Matthew Boyd, Matt Priddis and Jobe Watson as other star veterans who have recently announced their retirement. In the case of Johnson though, I wonder if his old club Geelong will honour him in some way.

by Ed Toussaint – contributor