Tom Briscoe to retire at end of 2026 season, closing a 19-year rugby league career
Hull FC winger Tom Briscoe will retire from professional rugby league at the end of the 2026 season, bringing down the curtain on a 19-year career that began on the terraces of East Yorkshire and spanned three clubs, six major finals won, and 232 tries in 471 appearances.
The 36-year-old former England international announced the decision on 27 August, with his final career appearance set to come against Leeds Rhinos at Headingley — the same ground where he won two of his six major honours across an eight-year stint with the Rhinos BBC Sport.
Briscoe started his career with Hull FC in 2008 as a teenager and quickly established himself as one of the competition's most prolific finishers. A try in rugby league is the same as in any code — grounding the ball over the opposition's try line — and Briscoe has done it 232 times across nearly two decades. He left Hull for Leeds ahead of the 2014 season and spent eight years at Headingley, winning two Grand Finals (the Super League's season-deciding championship match) and three Challenge Cups (rugby league's historic knockout cup competition, dating back to 1897).
After leaving Leeds, Briscoe had a spell at Leigh Leopards, where he added another Challenge Cup winner's medal in 2023. He then returned to Hull FC in April 2024, more than a decade after his initial departure, and has since scored 17 tries in 64 games during his second stint with the club Hull FC.
Briscoe had signed a contract extension in September 2025 to keep him at Hull through the 2026 campaign BBC Sport. The deal allowed him to finish his career where it started, in the black and white of Hull FC, though his farewell match will be played on the road at Headingley — the home of the club where he enjoyed his most decorated years.
For a player who has spent his career shuttling between Hull and Leeds, the symmetry of that final fixture is hard to miss. Briscoe debuted as a 17-year-old at Hull, became a serial winner at Leeds, and will run out for the last time on the ground that hosted some of his finest afternoons. The rugby league calendar rarely scripts such neat endings; this one landed on its own.
Briscoe earned England recognition during his peak years at Leeds and finishes with a reputation as one of the most reliable and durable wingers of his generation. In a sport where the six-tackle structure (league's system of limited possession before a kick is required) places a premium on finishing chances when they come, 232 tries across 471 games is a strike rate that speaks for itself.
