Repentant Rogers vows to stay sober

Wallabies fullback Mat Rogers has given up alcohol and vowed to turn his life around after a difficult 12 months highlighted by his marriage break-up.

Rogers, who hopes to return from injury for the Super 12 match against the Crusaders at Aussie Stadium on Saturday, has admitted he was spiralling out of control last year as his marriage ended, he lost A$200,000 ($217,080) in a bad property deal and alcohol-fuelled incidents kept him in the headlines.

"The penny has finally dropped, I guess," Rogers told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

"I haven't touched a drop of alcohol since the Australia Day [January 26] races. I just felt I needed to settle down.

"I thought, 'I'm 29 and only have a few years left if I want to make the most of it [sport].' I just want to be as good as I can be."

Rogers' admission came after Waratahs team-mate Cameron Shepherd was suspended on Tuesday for a match and fined A$5000 for an alcohol-related incident in which he was arrested for causing malicious damage to a car.

Rogers blames his inability to control his drinking for an incident last November when he was accused of swinging a punch and swearing at a fan outside an Edinburgh nightclub during the Wallabies' European tour.

It came not long after he had lost A$200,000 in a failed Gold Coast property deal and during a crisis in his marriage to Michelle.

"There was probably potential for me to have trouble with the drink, for sure," said the former Australian league representative.

"Like most people, the better the night, the longer you want it to last. I guess I'm the sort of person where one drink is too many but 100 isn't enough."

Rugby Union Players' Association boss Tony Dempsey said yesterday that there was no need to review alcohol counselling programmes in the code after Rogers' revelations.

Both the association and the Australian Rugby Union had played down a recent survey that found slightly more than half of Australian rugby players believed between one to 10 players in their state squad had a serious alcohol problem.

Dempsey said events of the last week did not change his stance.

"A revelation by Mat Rogers isn't going to cause us to have a huge review of our programmes," he said. "Two revelations aren't enough for us to hit the panic buttons."

- NZPA, AAP