There has been speculation about the future of Cooper Cronk for a number of years and he finally confirmed yesterday that he plans to leave the Melbourne Storm at the end of the season in order to move to Sydney to be with fiancée Tara Rushton.
Cooper Cronk is not the first athlete that has changed the course of their career due to romance and we have compiled this list of players that have had their careers shaped somewhat by their love lives.
Cooper Cronk
There is no better ambassador for Rugby League than Cooper Cronk and he is not the typical football, so it really did not come as much of a surprise that he elected to put the career of his fiancée Tara Rushton ahead of his own.
Cronk said that family and getting married are both more important than football and who are we to argue with one of the best half-backs on the modern era.
Mitchell Johnson
Mitchell Johnson is as Queensland as they come and there was a fair bit of shock back in 2008 when he ditched the Queensland Bulls to move to the Western Australian Warriors.
Johnson made the decision in order to move closer to his then girlfriend Jessica Bratich and it is fair to say that Queensland cricket fans – as well as his mother – were not particularly happy with the decision.
Shane Watson
Cooper Cronk is not the first athlete to move to Sydney in order to shack up with a Fox Sports presenter.
Shane Watson ditched the Queensland Bulls in 2009 in order to play with the New South Wales Blues, which allowed him to move to Sydney to live with Lee Furlong.
The pair are now happily married with a pair of kids.
Michael Clarke
Michael Clarke is now happily married, but we should not forget the time that his relationship with Lara Bingle almost tore the Australian cricket team apart.
The relationship with Clarke and his teammates hit rock-bottom at the conclusion of the Test Series against South Africa in 2009.
The Australian team were enjoying a couple of post-Test match beers and were in no hurry to sing the team song and leave the SCG dressing-room, which displeased Clarke who had made plans to meet up with Bingle.
Clarke complained that the song had yet to be sang and this pushed Simon Katich over the edge, who marched across the dressing room and grabbed Clarke by the shirt-collar.
Clarke would later end his engagement with Bingle and Katich was dropped from the Australian side when Clarke took over the captaincy.
Kieran Jack
Kieran Jack’s relationship with his girlfriend Charlotte Goodlet has allegedly been the source of an ugly public feud with his parents Donna Jack and former Rugby League star Garry Jack.
The feud first came to a head when Jack’s parents complained that they were not welcomed at their son’s 200th AFL game, but Jack was quick to throw his support behind Goodlet.
Jack has handled the public feud with plenty of character and it does not appear to have affected his performances for the Swans.
Aaron Rodgers
Actress and model Olivia Munn is at the heart of a very personal feud between Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers and his family.
The feud became public on – of all places – The Bachelor when Rodger’s young brother and eventual winner Jordan Rodgers claimed that his older brother had cut out his entire family since he started dating Munn.
This may be have a lot to do with jealously on the part of Jordan Rodgers – he was not in the same league as Aaron as a football player.
Tony Romo
The recently retired Tony Romo is now a happily married family man, but there was once a time when his relationship with Jessica Simpson was heavily criticised by Dallas Cowboys fans.
Romo spent the week before the start of the Dallas Cowboy’s 2008 NFL Playoffs campaign on a Mexican vacation with Simpson and when the Cowboys suffered a shock loss in the their first Playoffs game, Simpson was dubbed Yoko Romo by angry Cowboys fans.
Wayne Carey
I’m not sure that we can call what happened between Wayne Carey and Kelli Stevens as love, but it did have a massive effect on a couple of football clubs.
North Melbourne were the best team in the AFL in the late 1990s, but it all came crumbling down when Carey had an affair with the wife of former best-friend and teammate Anthony Stevens.
Carey left North Melbourne shortly after news of the affair went public and the Kangaroos are yet to win another flag.
