FORMER England captain Sam Tomkins has announced his immediate retirement and said: “For good this time!”

The two-time Man of Steel winner initially retired at the end of 2023, only to reverse that decision and re-join Catalans Dragons the following year.

Tomkins has only made eight appearances this season, the last of them against Wakefield Trinity at the beginning of July.

He withdraw in the warm-up from Catalans’ side to face Warrington Wolves the following week, after which his brother and Catalans coach Joel Tomkins revealed the 36-year-old “struggles to walk between games”.

His comeback brought a total of 14 matches with a struggling Dragons side – an unfitting way for one of the best English players of his generation to bow out.

Tomkins scored 167 tries in 290 Super League appearances, winning the competition three times with Wigan Warriors in 2010, 2013 and 2018.

He also won a Challenge Cup title in each of his two spells at Wigan, either side of a two-year NRL stint with New Zealand Warriors who paid what is believed to still be the world-record transfer fee of £700,000 for his services in 2014.

Joining Catalans in 2019, he helped the club win the League Leaders’ Shield for the first time in 2020 and reach their first two Grand Finals, only to be beaten in both.

Tomkins won his first Man of Steel award with Wigan in 2012 and the second as a Catalans player in 2021, the biggest ever span between wins of the English game’s most prestigious individual prize.

On the international front he scored 18 tries in 29 England appearances, making his debut in 2009, at the age of 20, and featuring in the home World Cups of 2013 and, as captain, 2022, which both ended in semi-final heartbreak.

Tomkins, who also works as a Sky Sports pundit, returned to the England fold last year as team manager under his former Wigan boss Shaun Wane, while he also held an off-field role for a short time with Catalans before reversing his first retirement decision.

His statement said: “Today I am announcing I have retired… for good this time!

“Thanks to Bernard (Guasch, Catalans owner) for this opportunity and all the players, staff and supporters for what has been an amazing seven years full of great memories.”