ST KILDA forward Adam Schneider has announced his retirement, with the former Osborne champion to play his last game this Sunday against his former side, the Sydney Swans.
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The veteran goalsneak will finish with 228 games under his belt once the final siren sounds, including five AFL grand finals.
While he was unsure what his next move would be, the 32-year old said he was open to a return to country football.
“I love the idea of coaching a country footy team,” Schneider said.
“It's all a bit up in the air at the moment, but I'll just enjoy this week and knuckle down once the season is over and figure something out from there.
“I'm open to everything at the moment, but I'm really keen to stay in football in some way.”
Schneider said a lot had changed in football since he was drafted in 2001.
“I was just a shy country kid from Osborne, I wanted to come home every day in my first year,” he said.
“It was a tough road to the AFL, I had to move from Leeton to Wagga, then I was lucky enough to be noticed by the Sydney Swans after about 11 games with the NSW/ACT Rams.”
The Osborne premiership star said he'd learned some tough lessons after joining St Kilda in 2007.
“It was a tough decision to move to the Saints, I'd gotten pretty comfortable in Sydney,” he said.
“But ultimately I decided to get out of my comfort zone, and I think it was probably one of the best things I could have done for my career.
“The club was on the rise when I arrived, so it was a little bit hard to swallow watching a few players leave after that successful period we had.
“But over time you change your mindset, and it became all about helping fast-track that next group of players.”
The St Kilda mentor said he owed a lot to former Swans star Ben Mathews.
“Ben really took me under his wing when I was a young kid in Sydney, and that was a big influence on me towards the end of my time with the Saints,” Schneider said.
Off all the achievements in his career, Schneider said there was one obvious highlight.
“I can't go past the 2005 grand final,” he said.
“As a kid I'd had a fair bit of success in country football so to an extent it almost felt normal.
“Winning that is what you dream of as a kid, and looking back now you realise just how special it was.
"I was really lucky to be involved with some great players, a great list and I'm very grateful for that.”
