EVERY season, in the week leading up to the final round, players — and sometimes clubs on behalf of players — decide their careers have come to an end.

Whether age has wearied them, injury hampered them, or younger guns have simply overtaken them, there is a raft of senior players who will not be seen again after the final siren sounds this weekend.

Yesterday at Punt Road, Tigers Ray Hall, Kent Kingsley and Trent Knobel decided it was time to officially hang up the boots, although their retirements had been long suspected due to debilitating injuries that have kept them on the sidelines for much of the season.

Kingsley and Knobel succumbed to ankle injuries, while Hall could not overcome a problem with a damaged tendon in his hip that kept him out all year and has stranded him on 99 games.

Only Kingsley played any part in the season — the ankle he injured in the pre-season allowing him three matches before giving way again after Richmond's round-11 clash with Fremantle.

The trio left a massive hole in the Tigers' talls department and, unlike others who will retire from football, none will be sent off with a swan-song match.

"We expected to have these guys for a longer period of time," Richmond coach Terry Wallace said. "We haven't got anyone sitting in front of us that's 33, 34, 35 years of age and we would have hoped to have them for a lot longer, but unfortunately it hasn't worked out that way."

Originally from Woy Woy in NSW, Hall had been at Richmond longest, having played his entire career there after his debut in 1999.

He was regarded as a "Mr Fix-It" around the club, playing on some of the biggest names in the competition and having been called upon to play positions as varied as half-forward flank and ruck.

"Not at any stage of the year has Ray looked likely to be able to get up and play," Wallace said.

"What I said to the players about Ray was that until you don't have somebody, you don't realise how much you miss them at times."

In Brisbane, it was Chris Scott's turn. The 31-year-old dual premiership player and 1998 Lions best and fairest came back for his first game last week after two years out with a hip injury, but it was never going to be more than a farewell.

Scott played 214 games and said yesterday that he was disappointed injury had prevented him from becoming "the player I thought I could become".

Yesterday's announcements merely followed some of the biggest names in the AFL, who decided earlier in the season to retire at the end of the year.

The praises of names such as Essendon's James Hird, Carlton's Anthony Koutoufides, Adelaide's Mark Ricciuto, the Western Bulldog's Luke Darcy and the Kangaroos' Glenn Archer have been sung for most of the year, while others, such as Michael Voss and Jonathan Hay, didn't fire a shot in anger all year, having retired before the season started but remaining on their club's lists.

At St Kilda, there will be plenty of decisions made after the weekend with Robert Harvey, Fraser Gehrig, Aaron Hamill, Andrew Thompson and Matthew Clarke all considering their future.

"Based on form and fitness, (Harvey has) every possibility to play on because he would be in our top six in our best and fairest," St Kilda coach Ross Lyon said. "I think Robert has every right, and the club has every right, to take as long as they want."

At Carlton, new coach Brett Ratten has a mammoth task ahead of him to re-build the list. He has started by stating he would like to keep Brendan Fevola but has not made the same commitment yet to skipper Lance Whitnall, who has struggled with fitness and played only 13 games this year.

The underperforming Demons have perhaps the biggest number of decisions to make following the weekend, with eight players aged 30 or over.

David Neitz and James McDonald have indicated that they plan to play on and Jeff White was in good enough form this season to suggest he has a couple of years left in him.

But the club will examine the tenure of the likes of Byron Pickett, Ben Holland, Clint Bizzell, Nathan Brown and Daniel Ward.

There are others, too, at the other end of the age scale, such as 23-year-old West Coast Eagle Ashley Sampi. The small forward has struggled with his commitment to football over the past two seasons and will be moved on by the Eagles.

Neither the premiers nor Sampi has decided how it will be played out, whether through retirement, delisting or trade, should Sampi decide to go to another club. But the Eagles have already announced that he would not be retained for 2008.