After 16 seasons in top-grade rugby league, NRL premiership winner Pat Richards has played his last match.

The 34-year-old Catalans Dragons winger announced last month he would retire at the end of the year but has been forced to hang up the boots prematurely after suffering a season-ending knee injury.

Richards, who has scored more than 3000 points in the NRL and Super League, returned to the northern hemisphere at the start of the season to take up a two-year contract with the Dragons.

He started his career with Parramatta in 2000 before shifting to the Wests Tigers in 2004, where he won the 2005 NRL premiership, scoring a memorable try off a Benji Marshall flick pass.