{"id":325154,"date":"2025-12-03T14:56:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T14:56:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325154\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T14:56:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T14:56:30","slug":"ryan-papenhuyzen-declares-future-a-blank-canvas-after-tearing-up-melbourne-nrl-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325154\/","title":{"rendered":"Ryan Papenhuyzen declares future \u2018a blank canvas\u2019 after tearing up Melbourne NRL contract"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Papenhuyzen isn\u2019t sure if he will ever play professional sport again, the former Melbourne NRL<\/a> star declaring his future a \u201cblank canvas\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old says he has no regrets about walking away from the final year of his Storm contract and hasn\u2019t been impacted by the delay of rebel rugby competition R360<\/a> because he never intended playing sport, apart from golf, next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been pretty set on next year as a gap year for sport in general, so the only sport I\u2019ll be playing is golf,\u201d Papenhuyzen said after the Australian Open pro-am at Royal Melbourne on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe plan was to always have a year off and try a few different things and see how that goes so that hasn\u2019t changed for me.<\/p>\n

\u201cLife\u2019s only short so if I\u2019m my 80-year-old self looking back now, what\u2019s something I regret not doing? It\u2019s probably taking a chance and doing something else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been in rugby league for nearly 10 years now and sport for 10 years, so why not pivot and try something else and there\u2019s always an option to come back, which is great.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m at a point now where I\u2019ve really progressed as a human and athletically as well, but there\u2019s more things I want to achieve in life and why not have a punt at that now?\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he could picture himself some time in the future strapping on footy boots again, he said no.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe playing touch footy at a local park or something like that but honestly, right now, no,\u201d said Papenhuyzen, who played in Melbourne\u2019s grand final defeats in the past two seasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sure I\u2019d weigh all options up if I got to that feeling again, but right now I\u2019m just looking at it as a blank canvas and I get to write that next chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Becoming an avid reader and deep thinker during his long injury stints on the sidelines, psychology has become a keen interest for Papenhuyzen and he\u2019s currently doing some mental performance coaching with a few young athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho knows, that could be the new career path, but I really like that side of things and I really benefited from my career so hopefully I can share that message with other people who are finding troubles and we\u2019ll see how that goes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really enjoying this stuff now, doing the mentoring and getting to play golf and going up to Sydney and seeing family, which I didn\u2019t get to do too much the last few years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Papenhuyzen said the only event on his sporting calendar was the invitational golf tournament at The Cathedral Golf Club in country Victoria next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m actually caddying for Daniel Gale next week at the Cathedral Invitational so that could be the new career, we never know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Former Aussie Test lock faces court over alleged theft<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Sacked Wests Tigers chair hits back at owners<\/p>\n

3 min read<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ryan Papenhuyzen isn\u2019t sure if he will ever play professional sport again, the former Melbourne NRL star declaring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,1625,4466,761,762,158,3863,588,85],"class_list":["post-325154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-lifestyle","tag-melbourne-storm","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sponsored-content","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}