PORT Adelaide champion Warren Tredrea says a serious ankle injury he sustained against Essendon in round seven was when he made his decision to retire.

He knew as he was being helped off of Etihad Stadium three months ago that his career had come to an end, but only made his intentions public at a press conference at Alberton on Tuesday.
 
The premiership player and four-time All-Australian said he’d pondered retirement prior to tearing two ligaments in his ankle in the Power’s win over the Bombers.
 
“I was battling early in the season mentally with AFL football and everything that went about with it," Tredrea said on Tuesday.

"When I’d come to the realisation [that I was ready to retire] I got injured, so maybe it was a bit of a blessing or a bit of a sign.”
 
Tredrea had radical LARS surgery to repair his injured ankle, with the aim of playing in the latter rounds of the season.
 
However, after sensing the new direction in which the club was heading under caretaker coach Matthew Primus the former skipper tapered off his rehabilitation program and shelved any plans to play a final farewell game.
 
“I was confident that I could get back before the end of the year, but the direction we’re heading in [as a club] is not a direction for a 31-year-old to be selfish,” he said.
 
“I was always going to retire at the end of this year and when I injured myself it brought it on even quicker. I was loving playing, loving training and loving competing but everything else that came with AFL footy… it was getting to the stage where I’d almost had enough.
 
“I don’t want this to sound bad, but I simply don’t want to [play a farewell game]. I’d very much like to help those young guys as best I can instead of being selfish and doing the farewell. I can do the farewell this weekend in the back of a car with my family instead of going into a game I’m not 100 per cent committed to.”

The badly damaged ankle was the final straw for Tredrea, who battled injury throughout his 14-year career.

The seven-time club leading goalkicker suffered four dislocated kneecaps and admitted he thought he was gone, after having corrective surgery on his knee at the end of 2006.

Instead, the imposing centre-half forward fought his way back to win a fourth best and fairest award in 2009 and said he was happy he hadn’t given up on his body earlier.

“It’s almost like the last few years have been on borrowed time,” Tredrea said.

“But in saying that if it had finished back then I almost would have felt a little bit robbed to go down at 28 years of age when you’re supposed to be in your peak years of your career.”

Tredrea also said he was glad to walk away from the game as a one-club player, after almost quitting the Power just two years into his decorated career.

“I asked to be traded at the end of 1998. I had Rob Snowdon, Brian Cunningham and my manager Geoff Motley come around to my house and I said to them, ‘I’m out. I want to play for a big Melbourne club and I want to go where the opportunities are’,” he said.

“It was the best non-trade and the best decision I ever made. You play football to play in finals and be part of a premiership. Port Adelaide gave me that and I’ll be forever indebted to them.”